
; ). L. MOODY 



HEAYEJST 



WHERE IT IS ; ITS INHABITANTS, AND HOW 
TO GET THERE. 



THE CEETA1NTY OF GOD'S PROMISE OP A LIFE BEYOND 

THE GRAVE, AND THE REWARDS THAT 

ARE IN STORE FOR FAITHFUL 

SERVICE. 



AS GLEANED FROM SACRED SCRIPTURE. 



/BY 

D. L. MOODY. 



CHICAGO : 
F. H. Revell, 148 and 150 Madison Street. 

Ittblis^er of €oan 9 ettcal f hwature. 



ir 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

F. H. REVELL, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED 

BY 

THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEW8 CO. 



This little book, upon a subject that is very dear to me, has been 
carefully revised, and is sent forth in the hope that it may give com- 
fort and edification to many; that, the weak may be strengthened, 
the sorrowing consoled, and the despondent encouraged to look with 
increased faith to that fairest of fair cities in the " Better Land," 
which is the home of the Redeemer and the redeemed. 

Many books have been published in this country in my name, but 
none of them with authority, and the only motive inspiring this small 
volume is that souls may be helped. 

D. L. MOODY. 

NORTHFIELD, MASS., 1880. 



HEAYEN. 



1 ' One by one we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear; 

One by one the kindly faces in that shadow disappear. 

Yet upon the mist before us fix thine eyes with closer view; 

See, beneath its sullen skirts, the rosy morning glimmers through. 

One whose feet the thorns have wounded passed that barrier and 

came back, 
With a glory on His footsteps lighting yet the dreary track. 
Boldly enter where He entered; all that seems but darkness here, 
When thou hast passed beyond it, haply shall be crystal clear.' ' 

Bryant. 



ITS HOPE. 



A geeat many persons imagine that anything said about 
heaven is only a matter of speculation. They talk about 
heaven like the air. Now there would not have been so 
much in Scripture on this subject if God had wanted to leave 
the human race in darkness about it. All Scripture, we are 
told, is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
eousness, that the man of God may be perfect — thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works. What the Bible says about 
heaven, is just as true as what it says about everything else. 
It is inspired. What we are taught about heaven could not 
have come to us in any other way but by inspiration. No 
one knew anything about it but God, and so if we want to 
find out anything about it, we have to turn to His Word. 
Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says that the best evidence of the 
Bible being the word of God, is to be found between its own 
two covers. It proves itself. In this respect it is like Christ, 
whose character proclaimed the divinity of His person. 
Christ showed Himself more than man by what he did. The 
Bible shows itself more than a human book by what it says. 
It is not, however, because the Bible is written with more 
than human skill, far surpassing Shakspeare or any other 
human author, and that its knowledge of character and the 
eloquence it contains are beyond the powers of man; that 
we believe it to be inspired. 

(?) 



8 HEAVEN. 



Men's ideas differ about the extent that human skill can 
go; but the reason why we believe the Bible is inspired, is 
so simple that the humblest child of God can comprehend 
it. If the proof of its divine origin lay in its wisdom alone, 
a simple and uneducated man might not be able to believe 
it. We believe it is inspired, because there is nothing in it 
that could not have come from God. God is wise, and God 
is good. There is nothing in the Bible that is not wise, and 
there is nothing in it that is not good. If the Bible had 
anything in it that was opposed to reason, or to our sense of 
right, then, perhaps, we might think that it was like all the 
books in the world that are written merely by men. Books 
that are just human books, like merely human lives, have in 
them a great deal that is foolish and a great deal that is 
wrong. The life of Christ alone was perfect, being both 
human and divine. Not one of the other volumes, like the 
Koran, that claim divinity of origin, agree with common 
sense. There is nothing at all in the Bible that does not 
conform to common sense. What it tells us about the 
world having been destroyed by a deluge, and Nos.h and 
his family alone being saved, is no more wonderful than 
what is being taught in the schools, that all of the earth we 
see now, and everything upon it, came out of a ball of fire. 
It is a great deal easier to believe that man was made after 
the image of God, than it is to believe, as some young men 
and worn n are being taught now, that he was once a mon- 
key. 

Like all the other wonderful works of God, this Book 
bears the sure stamp of its author. It is like Him. Though 
man plants the seeds, God makes the flowers, and they are 
perfect and beautiful like Himself. Men wrote what is in 
the Bible, but the work is God's. The more refined, as a 
rule, people are, the fonder they are of the flowers, and the 
better they are, as a rule, the more they love the Bible. 



ITS HOPE. 9 



The fondness for flowers refines people, and the love of the 
Bible makes them better. All that is in the Bible about 
God, about man, about redemption, and about a future state, 
agrees with our own ideas of right, with our reasonable fears 
and with our personal experiences. All the historical things 
are told in the way that we know the world had of looking 
at them when they were written. What the Bible tells 
about heaven is not half so strange as what Professor Proc- 
tor tells about the hosts of stars that are beyond the range 
of any telescope — and yet people very often think that sci- 
ence is all fact, and that religion is only fancy. A great 
many persons think that Jupiter and many more of the stars 
around us are inhabited, who cannot bring themselves to be- 
lieve that there is a life beyond this earth for immortal souls. 
The true Christian puts faith before reason, and believes that 
reason always goes wrong when faith is set aside. If people 
would but read their Bibles more, and study what there is 
to be found there about Heaven, they would not be as world- 
ly-minded as they are. They would not have their hearts 
set upon things down here, but would seek the imperishable 
things above. 

EARTH THE HOME OF SIN". 

It seems perfectly reasonable that God should have given 
us a glimpse of the future, for we are constantly losing some 
of our friends by death, and the first thought that comes to 
us is, " where have they gone? " When a loved one is taken 
away from us, how that thought comes up before us! How 
we wonder if we will ever see them again, and where and 
when it will be ! Then it is that we turn to this blessed Book, 
for there is no other book in all the world that can give us 
the slighest comfort; no other book that can tell us where 
the loved ones have gone. 

Not long ago I met an old friend, and as I took him by 



10 HEAVEN, 



the hand and asked after his family, the tears came trickling 
down his cheeks as he said: 

" I haven't any now." 

" What," I said, "is your wife dead?" 

"Yes sir." 

"And all your children, too? " 

" Yes, all gone," he said, " and I am left here desolate and 
alone." 

Would any one take from that man the hope that he will 
meet his dear ones again? ' Would any one persuade him 
that there is not a future where the lost will be found? 
No, we need not forget our dear loved ones; but we may 
cling forever to the enduring hope that there will be a time 
when we can meet unfettered, and be blest in that land of 
everlasting .suns, where the soul drinks from the living 
streams of love that roll by God's high throne. 

In our inmost hearts there are none of us but have ques- 
tionings of the future. 

" Tell me, my secret soul, 

0, tell me, Hope and Faith, 

Is there no resting place 

From sorrow, sin and death? 

Is there no happy spot 

Where mortals may be blest, 

Where grief may find a balm, 

And weariness a rest? 
Faith, Hope and Love — best boons to mortals given — 
Waved their bright wings, and whispered: 
Yes, in heaven!" 

There are men who say that there is no heaven. I was once 
talking with a man who said he thought there was nothing 
to justify us in believing in any other heaven than we know 
here on earth. If this is heaven, it is a very strange one — 
this world of sickness, and sorrow, and sin. I pity from the 
depths of my heart the man or woman who has that idea. 



ITS HOPE. 11 



This world that so many think is heaven, is the home of 
sin, a hospital of sorrow, a place that has nothing in it to sat- 
isfy the soul. Men go all over it and then want to get out 
of it. The more one sees of the world the less they think of 
it. People soon grow tired of the best pleasures it has to 
offer. Some one has said that the world is a stormy sea, 
whose every wave is strewed with the wrecks of mortals that 
perish in it. Every time we breathe some one is dying. We 
all know that we are going to stay here but a very little 
while. Our life is but a vapor. It is just a mere shadow. 

We meet one another, as some one has said, salute one 
another, and pass on and are gone. And another has said, 
it is just an inch of time, and then eternal ages roll on; and it 
seems to me that it is perfectly reasonable that we should 
study this book, to find out where we are going, and where 
our friends are who have gone on before. The longest time 
man has to live, has no more proportion to eternity than a 
drop of dew has to the ocean. 

CITIES OF THE PAST. 

Look at the cities of the past. There is Babylon. It was 
founded by a woman named Semiramis, who had two mil- 
lions of men at work for years building it. It is nothing but 
dust now. Nearly a thousand years ago, some historian 
wrote that the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace were still 
standing, but men were afraid to go near them because they 
were full of scorpions and snakes. That's the sort of ruin 
that greatness often comes to in our own day. Nineveh is 
gone. Its towers and bastions have fallen. The traveler 
who tries to see Carthage, can't see much of it. Corinth, 
once the seat of luxury and art, is only a shapeless mass. 
Ephesus long the metropolis of Asia, the Paris of that day, 
was crowded with buildings as large as the capitol at Wash- 
ington. I am told it looks more like a neglected graveyard 



12 HEAVEN. 



now than anything else. Granada is now the housing place 
of lions and jackals. It was once very grand, with its twelve 
gates and towers. The Alhambra, the palace of the Moham- 
medan kings, was situated there. Probably the animals play 
with the monarchs' bones.' Little pieces of the once grand 
and beautiful cities of Herculanaeum and Pompeii are now 
being sold in the shops for relics. Jerusalem, once one of 
the grandest cities of the universe, is but a shadow of itself. 
Thebes — for thousands of years, up almost to the coming of 
Christ, the largest and wealthiest city of the world — is now a 
mass of decay. Very little of Athens and many more of the 
proud cities of olden times, remain to tell the story of their 
downfall. God drives His plowshare through cities, and 
they are upheaved like furrows in the field. "Behold," 
says Isaiah, " the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are 
counted as the small dust of the balance; behold, hetaketh 
up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him 
are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than 
nothing, and vanity." 

See how Antioch has fallen! When Paul preached there, 
it was a superb metropolis. A wide street, over three miles 
long, stretching across the entire city, was ornamented with 
rows of columns and covered galleries, and at every corner 
stood carved statues to commemorate their great men, whose 
names even we have never heard. These are never heard 
of now, but the poor preaching tent-maker who came into 
its portals, stands out as the grandest character in all history. 
The finest specimens of Grecian art decorated the shrines 
of the temples, and the baths and the aqueducts were such 
as are never approached in elegance now. Men then, as 
now, were seeking honors and wealth and mighty names, 
and seeking to enshrine their names and records in perish- 
able clay. Within the walls, we are told, were enclosed 
mountains over seven hundred feet high, and rocky preci- 



ITS HOPE. 13 



pices and deep ravines gave a wild and picturesque charac- 
ter to the city of which no modern city gives us an example. 
These heights were fortified in a marvelous manner, which 
gave to them strange and startling effects. The vast pop- 
ulation of this brilliant city, combining all the art and 
cultivation of Greece with the levity, the luxury and the 
superstition of Asia, was as intent on pleasure as the popula- 
tion of any of our great cities are to-day. They had their 
shows, their games, their races and dances, their sorcerers, 
puzzlers, buffoons and miracle- workers, and the whole peo- 
ple sought constantly in the theatres and processions, for 
something to stimulate and gratify the most corrupt desires 
of the soul. 

This is pretty much what we find the masses of the people 
in our great cities doing now. The place was even worse 
than Athens, for the so-called worship they indulged in was 
not only idolatrous, but had mixed up with it the grossest 
passions to which man descends. It was here that Paul 
came to preach the glad tidings of the gospel of Christ; it 
was here that his converts were first called Christians, as a 
nickname; the first time the name was ever used, all follow- 
ers of Christ before that time having been called " saints " or 
" brethren." As has been well said, out of that spring at 
Antioch, a mighty stream has flowed to water the world. 
Astarte, the " Queen of Heaven," whom they worshipped; 
Diana, Apollo, the Pharisee and Sadusee, are no more, but 
the despised Christians yet live. Yet that Heathen City, 
which would not take Christianity to its heart and keep it, 
fell. Cities that have not the refining and restraining influ- 
ences of Christianity well established in them, seldom do 
amount to much in the long run. They grow dim in the 
light of ages. Few of our great cities in this country are a 
hundred years old as yet. For nearly a thousand years this 
city prospered; yet it fell. 



14 HEAVEN. 



GOING TO EMIGEATE. 

I do not think that it is wrong for us to think and talk 
about heaven. I like to locate heaven, and find out all I 
can about it. I expect to live there through all eternity. 
If I was going to dwell in any place in this country, if I 
was going to make it my home, I would want to inquire 
about the place, about its climate, about the neighbors I 
would have, and about everything, in fact, that I could learn 
concerning it. If any of you were going to emigrate, that 
would be the way you would feel. Well, we are all going 
to emigrate in a very little while to a country that is very far 
away. We are going to spend eternity in another world, a 
grand and glorious world whe»e God reigns. Is it not nat- 
ural, then, that we should look and listen and try to find out 
who is already there, and what is the route to take ? Soon 
after I was converted, an infidel asked me one day why I 
looked up when I prayed. He said that heaven was no more 
above us than below us; that heaven was everywhere. Well, 
I was greatly bewildered, and the next time I prayed, it 
seemed almost as if I was praying into the air. Since then 
I have become better acquainted with the Bible, and I have 
come to see that heaven is above us; that it is upward, and 
not downward. The spirit of God is everywhere, but God is 
in heaven, and heaven is above our heads. It does not matter 
what part of the globe we may stand upon, heaven is above us. 
In the 17th chapter of Genesis it says that God went up 
from Abraham; and in the 3d chapter of John, that he came 
down from heaven. So, in the 1st chapter of Acts we find 
that Christ went up into heaven (not down), and a cloud re- 
ceived him out of sight. Thus we see heaven is up. The 
very arrangement of the firmament about the earth declares 
the seat of God's glory to be above us. Job says, " Let not 
God regard it from above" and we find the Psalmist declar- 



ITS HOPE. 15 



ing " the Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above 
the haavens." 

Again in Deuteronomy, we find, " who shall go up for us 
to heaven?" Thus, all through scripture we find that we 
are given the location of heaven as upward and beyond the 
firmament. This firmament, with its many bright worlds 
scattered through, is so vast that heaven must be an exten- 
sive realm. Yet this need not surprise us. 

It is not for short-sighted man to inquire why God made 
heaven so extensive that its lights along the way can be seen 
from any part or side of this little world. 

In the 51st chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah we are 
told that: He hath made the earth by his power; he hath 
established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out 
the heaven by his understanding. Yet, how little we really 
know of that power, or wisdom or understanding! As it 
says in the 26th chapter of Job: Lo, these are parts of his 
ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the 
thunder of his power, who can understand? 

This is the word of God. As we find in the 42nd chapter 
of Isaiah: Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the 
heavens and stretched them out; he that spread forth the 
earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth bread 
unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk within. 

The discernment of God's power, the messages of heaven, 
do not always come in great things. We read in the 19th 
chapter of the first book of Kings: 

" And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind 
rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; 
but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; 
but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a 
fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small 
voice." 

It is as a still small voice that God speaks to His children. 



16 HEAVEN. 



Some people are trying to find out just how far heaven is 
away. There is one thing we know about it; that is, that 
it is not so far away but that God can hear us when we pray. 
I do not believe there has ever been a tear shed for sin since 
Adam's fall in Eden to the present time, but God has wit- 
nessed that. He is not too far from this earth for us to go to 
Him; and if there is a sigh that comes from a burdened heart 
to-day, God will hear that sigh. If there is a cry coming up 
from a heart broken on account of sin, God will hear that cry. 
He is not so far away, heaven is not so far away, as to be in- 
accessible to the smallest child. In the 7th chapter and 14th 
verse of 2nd Chronicles, we read: 

" If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble them- 
selves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, 
then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal 
their land." 

When I was in Dublin, they were telling me about a 
father who had lost a little boy, and he had not thought 
about the future, he had been so entirely taken up with this 
world and its affairs; but when that little boy, his only child, 
died, that father's heart was broken, and every night when 
he got home from work, they would find him with his tallow 
candle and his Bible in his room, and he was hunting up all 
that he could find there about heaven. And some one asked 
him what he was doing, and he said he was trying to find 
out where his child had gone, and I think he was a reasona- 
ble man. I suppose there is not a man or woman but has 
dear ones that are gone. Shall we close this book to-day? 
or shall we look into it to try to find where the loved ones 
are? I was reading, some time ago, an account of a father, 
a minister, who had lost a child. He had gone to a great 
many funerals, offering comfort to others in sorrow, but 
now the iron had entered his own soul, and a brother minis- 
ter had come to officiate and preach the funeral sermon; and 



ITS HOPE. 17 



after this minister got through speaking, the father got up, 
and standing right at the head of the coffin, looking at the 
face of that loved child that was gone, he said that a few 
years ago, when he had first come into that parish, as he 
used to look over the river he took no interest in the people 
over there, because they were all strangers to him and there 
were none over there that belonged to his parish. But, he 
said, a few years ago a young man came into his home, and 
married his daughter, and she went over the river to live, 
and when that child went over there, he became sudden- 
ly interested in the inhabitants, and every morning as he 
would get up he would look out of the window and look 
over there at her home. But now, said he, another child 
has been taken. She has gone over another river, and 
heaven seems dearer and nearer to me than it ever has be- 
fore. 

My friends, let us believe this good old Book, that heaven 
is not a myth, and let us be prepared to follow the dear ones 
who have gone before. There, and there alone, can we find 
the peace we seek for; 

SEEKING A BETTER COUNTRY. 

What has been, and is now, one of the strongest feelings 
in the human heart? Is it not to find some better place, 
some lovelier spot, than we have now? It is for this that 
men are seeking everywhere ; and yet, they can have it, if 
they will ; but instead of looking down, they must look up to 
find it. As men grow in knowledge, they vie with each 
other more and more to make their homes attractive, but 
the brightest home on earth is but an empty barn, compared 
with the mansions that are in the skies. 

What is it that we look for at the decline and close of life? 
Is it not some sheltered place, some quiet spot, where if 
we cannot have constant rest, we may at least have a fore- 
2 



18 HEAVEN. 



taste of what it is to be. What was it that led Columbus, 
not knowing what would be his fate, across the unsailed west- 
ern seas, if it was not the hope of finding a better country? 
This it was that sustained the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
driven from their native land by persecution, as they faced 
an iron-bound, savage coast, with an unexplored territory 
beyond. They were cheered and upheld by the hope of reach- 
ing a free and fruitful country, where they could be at rest 
and worship God in peace. 

Somewhat similar is the Christian's hope of heaven, only it 
is not an undiscovered country, and in attractions cannot be 
compared with anything we know on earth. Perhaps noth- 
ing but the shortness of our range of sight keeps us from 
seeing the celestial gates all open to us, and nothing but the 
deafness of our ears, prevents our hearing the joyful ringing 
of the bells of heaven. There are constant sounds around 
us that we cannot hear, and the sky is studded with bright 
worlds that our eyes have never seen. Little as we know 
about this bright and radiant land, there are glimpses of its 
beauty that come to us now and then. 

" We may not know how sweet its balmy air, 
How bright and fair its flowers; 
We may not hear the songs that echo there, 
Through these enchanted bowers. 

" The city's shining towers we may not see 
With our dim earthly vision, 
For death, the silent warder, keeps the key 
That opes the gates elysian. 

" But sometimes when adown the western sky 
A fiery sunset lingers, 
Its golden gate swings inward noiselessly, 
Unlocked by unseen fingers. 

u And while they stand a moment half ajar, 
Gleams from the inner glory 
Stream brightly through the azure vault afar, 
And half reveal the story." 



ITS HOPE. 19 



It is said by travelers, that in climbing the Alps the houses 
of far distant villages can be seen with great distinctness, 
so that sometimes the number of panes of glass in a church 
window can be counted. The distance looks so short that 
the place seems almost at hand, but after hours and hours 
of climbing, it looks no nearer yet. This is because of the 
clearness of the atmosphere. By perseverance, however, 
the place is reached at last, and the tired traveler finds rest. 
So sometimes we dwell in high altitudes of grace; heaven 
seems very near, and the hills of Beulah are in full view. 
At other times the clouds and fogs that come through suf- 
fering and sin, cut off our sight. We are just as near heav- 
en in the one case as we are in the other, and we are just as 
sure of gaining it if we only keep in the path that Christ 
has trod. 

I have read that on the shores of the Adriatic sea, the 
wives of fishermen, whose husbands have gone far out upon 
the deep, are in the habit of going down to the sea-shore at 
night and singing with their sweet voices the first verse of 
some beautiful hymn. After they have sung it they listen 
until they hear brought on the wind, across the sea, the sec- 
ond verse sung by their brave husbands as they are tossed 
by the gale — and both are happy. Perhaps, if we would 
listen, we too might hear on this sea-tossed world of ours, 
some sound, some whisper, borne from afar to tell us there 
is a heaven which is our home; and when we sing our hymns 
upon the shores of earth, perhaps we may hear their sweet 
echoes breaking in music upon the sands of time, and cheer- 
ing the hearts of those who are pilgrims and strangers along 
the way. Yes we need to look up — out, beyond this low 
earth, and to build higher in our thoughts and actions, even 
here! 

You know, when a man is going up in a balloon, he takes 
in sand as a ballast, and when he wants to mount a little 



20 HEAVEN. 



higher, he throws out a little of the ballast, and then he will 
mount a little higher; he throws out a little more ballast, 
and he mounts still higher; and the higher he gets the more 
he throws out — and so the nearer we get to God the more 
we have to throw out of the things of this world. Let go of 
them; do not let us first set our hearts and affections on them, 
but do what the Master tells us — lay up for ourselves treas- 
ures in heaven. 

In England I was told of a lady who had been bedridden 
for years. She was one of those saints that God polishes up 
for the kingdom; for I believe that there are a good many 
saints in this world that we never hear about; we never see 
their names heralded through the press; they live very near 
the Master; they live very near heaven; and I think it takes 
a great deal more grace to suffer God's will than it does to 
do God's will; and if a person lies on a bed of sickness, and 
suffers cheerfully, it is just as acceptable to God as if they 
went out and worked in His vineyard. 

Now, it was one of those saints, and a lady, who said that 
for a long time she used to have a great deal of pleasure in 
watching a bird that came to make its nest near her window. 
One year it came to make its nest, and it began to make it 
so low she was afraid something would happen to the young; 
and every day that she saw that bird busy at work making 
its nest, she kept saying, " O bird, build higher!" She could 
see that the bird was going to come to grief and disappoint- 
ment. A last the bird got its nest done, and laid its eggs 
and hatched its young; and every morning the lady looked 
out to see if the nest was there, and she saw the old bird 
bringing food for the little ones, and she took a great deal 
of pleasure in looking at it. But one morning she woke up 
and she looked out and she saw nothing but feathers scat- 
tered all around, and she said, " Ah, the cat has got the old 
bird and all its young." It would have been a mercy to have 



ITS HOPE. 21 



torn that nest down. That is what God does for us very 
often — just snatches things away before it is to late. Now, 
I think that is what we want to say to church people — that if 
you build for time you will be disappointed. God says: 
Build up yonder. It is a good deal better to have life in 
Christ and God than anywhere else. I would rather have 
my life hid with Christ in God than be in Eden as Adam 
was. Adam might have remained in Paradise for 16,0C0 
years, and then fallen, but if ours is hid in Christ, how safe! 



ITS INHABITANTS. 




LITTLE way ! I know it is not far 
To that dear home where my beloved are; 
And still my heart sits, like a bird, upon 
The empty nest, and mourns its treasures gone, 
Plumed for their flight, 
And vanished quite. 
Ah me! where is the comfort? though I say 
They have but journeyed on a little way. 

" A little way! At times they seem so near, 
Their voices even murmur in my ear, 
To all my duties loving presence lend, 
And with sweet ministry my steps attend. 
'Twas here we met and parted company; 
Why should their gain be such a grief to me ? 

This sense of loss ! 

This heavy cross ! 
Dear Savior, take the burden off, I pray, 
And show me heaven is but — a little way. 

" A little way! The sentence I repeat, 
Hoping and longing, to extract some sweet 
To mingle with the bitter; from Thy hand 
I take the cup I cannot understand, 
And in my weakness give myself to Thee. 
Although it seems so very, very far 
To that dear home where my beloved are, 

I know, I know, 

It is not so; 
Oh, give me faith to believe it when I say 
That they are gone— gone but a little way. 

— Anonymous, 



ITS INHABITANTS. 



The society of heaven will be select. No one who stud* 
ies Scripture can doubt that. There are a good many kinds 
of aristocracy in this world, but the aristocracy of heaven 
will be the aristocracy of holiness. The humblest sinner on 
earth will be an aristocrat there. It says in the fifty-seventh 
chapter of Isaiah: For thus saith the High and Lofty One, 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy: I will dwell in 
the high and holy place with him that is of a contrite and 
humble spirit. Now what could be plainer than that ? 
No one that is not of a contrite and humble spirit will dwell 
with God in His high and holy place. 

If there is anything that ought to make heaven near 
to Christians, it is knowing that God and all their loved 
ones w T ill be there. What is it that makes home so attract- 
ive? Is it because we have a beautiful home? Is it because 
we have beautiful lawns? Is it because we have beautiful 
trees around that home? Is it because we have beautiful 
paintings upon the walls inside? Is it because we have 
beautiful furniture? Is that all that makes home so attract- 
ive and so beautiful? Nay, it is the loved ones in it; it is 
the loved ones there. 

I remember after being away from home some time, I 
went back to see my honored mother, and I thought in going 
back I would take her by surprise, and steal in unexpected- 
ly upon her, but when I found she had gone away, the old 

(25) 



26 HEAVEN. 



place didn't seem like home at all. I went into one room 
and then into another, and I went all through the house, but 
I could not find that loved mother, and I said to some mem- 
ber of the family, "Where is mother?" and they said she 
had gone away. Well, home had lost its charm to me; it 
was that mother that made home so sweet to me, and it is 
the loved ones that make home so sweet to every one; it is 
the loved ones that are going to make heaven so sweet to 
all of us. Christ is there; God, the Father, is there; and 
many, many that were dear to us that lived on earth are 
there — and we shall be with them by and by. 

We find clearly in the 18th chapter of Matthew, and the 
10th verse, that the angels are there: Take heed that ye 
despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that 
in heaven, their angels do always behold the face of my Father 
which is in heaven. 

Their angels do always behold the Father's face! We 
shall have good company up there; not only they that have 
been redeemed, but those that have never been lost; those 
that have never known what it is to transgress; those who 
have never known what it is to be disobedient; those who 
have obeyed Him from the very morning of creation. 

It says in another place, when Gabriel came down to tell 
Zachariah that he was to be the father of the forerunner of 
Jesus Christ, Zachariah doubted him; he had never been 
doubted before; and that doubt is met with the declaration: 
" I am Gabriel, that standeth in the presence of the Al- 
mighty." What a glorious thing to be able to say! 

It has been said that there will be three things which will 
surprise us when we get to heaven — one, to find many there 
that we did not expect to find there; another, to find some 
not there whom we had expected; a third, and perhaps the 
greatest wonder, will be to find ourselves there. 

A poor woman once told Rowland Hill that the way to 



I 



ITS INHABITANTS. 27 

heaven was short, easy and simple; comprising only three 
steps — out of self, into Christ, and into glory. We have a 
shorter way now — out of self and into Christ, and we are there. 
As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead 
soul inherit heaven. The soul must be resurrected in Christ. 
Among the good whom we hope to meet in heaven, we are 
told, there will be every variety of character, taste, and dis- 
position. There is not one mansion there; but many. There 
is not one gate to heaven, but many. There are not only 
gates on the north; but on the east three gates, and on the 
west three gates, and on the south three gates. From oppo- 
site quarters of the theological compass, from opposite quar- 
ters of the religious world, from opposite quarters of human 
life and character, through different expressions of their com- 
mon faith and hope, through different modes of conversion, 
through different portions of the Holy Scripture, will the 
weary travelers enter the Heavenly City, and meet each 
other — " not without surprise " — on the shores of the same 
river of life. And on those shores they will find a tree bear- 
ing, not the same kind of fruit always and at all times, but 
" twelve manner of fruits," for every different turn of mind, 
— for the patient sufferer, for the active servant, for the holy 
and humble philosopher, for the spirits of just men now at 
last made perfect; and "the leaves of the tree shall be for 
the healing," not of one single church or people only, not for 
the Scotchman or the Englishman only, but for the "healing 
of the nations," — the Frenchman, the German, the Italian, 
the Russian — for all those from whom it may be, in this, its 
fruits have been farthest removed, but who, nevertheless, 
have " hungered and thirsted after righteousness," and who 
therefore " shall be filled." 

An eminent living divine says : 

" When I was a boy, I thought of heaven as a great, shin- 
ing city, with vast walls and domes and spires, and with 
nobody in it except white-robed angels, who were strangers 




LITTLE way ! I know it is not far 
To that dear home where my beloved are; 
And still my heart sits, like a bird, upon 
The empty nest, and mourns its treasures gone, 
Plumed for their flight, 
And vanished quite. 
Ah me! where is the comfort? though I say 
They have but journeyed on a little way. 

11 A little way! At times they seem so near, 
Their voices even murmur in my ear, 
To all my duties loving presence lend, 
And with sweet ministry my steps attend. 
'Twas here we met and parted company; 
Why should their gain be such a grief to me ? 

This sense of loss ! 

This heavy cross ! 
Dear Savior, take the burden off, I pray, 
And show me heaven is but — a little way. 

" A little way! The sentence I repeat, 
Hoping and longing, to extract some sweet 
To mingle with the bitter; from Thy hand 
I take the cup I cannot understand, 
And in my weakness give myself to Thee. 
Although it seems so very, very far 
To that dear home where my beloved are, 

I know, I know, 

It is not so; 
Oh, give me faith to believe it when I say 
That they are gone— gone but a little way. 

—Anonymous. 



ITS INHABITANTS. 



The society of heaven will be select. No one who stud* 
ies Scripture can doubt that. There are a good many kinds 
of aristocracy in this world, but the aristocracy of heaven 
will be the aristocracy of holiness. The humblest sinner on 
earth will be an aristocrat there. It says in the fifty-seventh 
chapter of Isaiah: For thus saith the High and Lofty One, 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy: I will dwell in 
the high and holy place with him that is of a contrite and 
humble spirit. Now what could be plainer than that ? 
No one that is not of a contrite and humble spirit will dwell 
with God in His high and holy place. 

If there is anything that ought to make heaven near 
to Christians, it is knowing that God and all their loved 
ones will be there. What is it that makes home so attract- 
ive? Is it because we have a beautiful home? Is it because 
we have beautiful lawns? Is it because we have beautiful 
trees around that home? Is it because we have beautiful 
paintings upon the wails inside? Is it because we have 
beautiful furniture? Is that all that makes home so attract- 
ive and so beautiful? Nay, it is the loved ones in it; it is 
the loved ones there. 

I remember after being away from home some time, I 
went back to see my honored mother, and I thought in going 
back I would take her by surprise, and steal in unexpected- 
ly upon her, but when I found she had gone away, the old 

(25) 



26 HEAVEN. 



place didn't seem like home at all. I went into one room 
and then into another, and I went all through the house, but 
I could not find that loved mother, and I said to some mem- 
ber of the family, "Where is mother?" and they said she 
had gone away. Well, home had lost its charm to me; it 
was that mother that made home so sweet to me, and it is 
the loved ones that make home so sweet to every one; it is 
the loved ones that are going to make heaven so sweet to 
all of us. Christ is there; God, the Father, is there; and 
many, many that were dear to us that lived on earth are 
there — and we shall be with them by and by. 

We find clearly in the 18th chapter of Matthew, and the 
10th verse, that the angels are there: Take heed that ye 
despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that 
in heaven, their angels do always behold the face of my Father 
which is in heaven. 

Their angels do always behold the Father's face! We 
shall have good company up there; not only they that have 
been redeemed, but those that have never been lost; those 
that have never known what it is to transgress; those who 
have never known what it is to be disobedient; those who 
have obeyed Him from the very morning of creation. 

It says in another place, when Gabriel came down to tell 
Zachariah that he was to be the father of the forerunner of 
Jesus Christ, Zachariah doubted him; he had never been 
doubted before; and that doubt is met with the declaration: 
" I am Gabriel, that standeth in the presence of the Al- 
mighty." What a glorious thing to be able to say! 

It has been said that there will be three things which will 
surprise us when we get to heaven — one, to find many there 
that we did not expect to find there; another, to find some 
not there whom we had expected; a third, and perhaps the 
greatest wonder, will be to find ourselves there. 

A poor woman once told Rowland Hill that the way to 



I 



ITS INHABITANTS. 27 

heaven was short, easy and simple; comprising only three 
steps— out of self, into Christ, and into glory. We have a 
shorter way now — out of self and into Christ, and we are there. 
As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead 
soul inherit heaven. The soul must be resurrected in Christ. 
Among the good whom we hope to meet in heaven, we are 
told, there will be every variety of character, taste, and dis- 
position. There is not one mansion there; but many. There 
is not one gate to heaven, but many. There are not only 
gates on the north; but on the east three gates, and on the 
west three gates, and on the south three gates. From oppo- 
site quarters of the theological compass, from opposite quar- 
ters of the religious world, from opposite quarters of human 
life and character, through different expressions of their com- 
mon faith and hope, through different modes of conversion, 
through different portions of the Holy Scripture, will the 
weary travelers enter the Heavenly City, and meet each 
other — u not without surprise "—-on the shores of the same 
river of life. And on those shores they will find a tree bear- 
ing, not the same kind of fruit always and at all times, but 
" twelve manner of fruits," for every different turn of mind, 
— for the patient sufferer, for the active servant, for the holy 
and humble philosopher, for the spirits of just men now at 
last made perfect; and "the leaves of the tree shall be for 
the healing," not of one single church or people only, not for 
the Scotchman or the Englishman only, but for the "healing 
of the nations," — the Frenchman, the German, the Italian, 
the Russian — for all those from whom it may be, in this, its 
fruits have been farthest removed, but who, nevertheless, 
have " hungered and thirsted after righteousness," and who 
therefore " shall be filled." 

An eminent living divine says : 

" When I was a boy, I thought of heaven as a great, shin- 
ing city, with vast walls and domes and spires, and with 
nobody in it except white-robed angels, who were strangers 



28 HE A VEN. 



to me. By and by my little brother died ; and I thought 
of a great city with walls and domes and spires, and a flock 
of cold, unknown angels, and one little fellow that I was 
acquainted with. He was the only one I knew at that time. 
Then another brother died ; and there were two that I 
knew. Then my acquaintances began to die ; and the flock 
continually grew. But it was not till I had sent one of my 
little children to his Heavenly Parent — God — that I began 
to think I had got a little in myself. A second went, a third 
went; a fourth went ; and by that time I had so many ac- 
quaintances in heaven, that I did not see any more walls 
and domes and spires. I began to think of the residents 
of the celestial city. And now there have so many of my 
acquaintances gone there, that it sometimes seems to me 
that I know more in heaven than I do on earth." 

WE WILL LIVE FOKEVER. 

It says in the 12th chapter of John and the 26th verse: 
If any man serve me, let him follow me ; and where I am, 
there shall also my servant be. 

I cannot agree with some people, that Paul has been sleep- 
ing in the grave, and is still there, after the storms of eighteen 
hundred years. I cannot believe that he who loved the 
Master, who had such a burning zeal for Him, has been sep- 
arated from Him in an unconscious state, " Father, I will 
that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where 
I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast giv- 
en me." This is Christ's prayer. 

Now when a man believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, he 
gets eternal life. A great many people make a mistake 
right there ; " He that believeth on the Son hath — h-a-t-h — 
hath eternal life;" it does not say he shall have it when he 
comes to die ; it is in the present tense ; it is mine now — if 
I believe. He is the gift of God, that is enough. You can't 



ITS INHABITANTS. 29 

bury the gift of God ; you can't bury eternal life. All the 
grave-diggers in the world can't dig a grave large enough 
and deep enough to hold eternal life ; all the coffin-makers 
of the world can't make a coffin large enough and deep 
enough to hold eternal life ; that is mine ; it is mine! 

I believe when Paul said " To be absent from the body 
and present with the Lord, " he meant what he said ; that he 
was not going to be separated from Him for eighteen hun- 
dred years ; that spirit that he got when he was converted he 
got from a new life and a new nature, and they could not 
lay that away in the sepulchre; they could not bury that^ 
that flew to meet its Maker. It may be he is not satisfied, 
and will not be until the resurrection, but Christ says : "He 
will see then the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. " Even 
the body shall be raised ; this body, sown in dishonor, shall 
be raised in glory ; this body which has put on corruption, 
shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immor- 
tality. It is only a question of time. The great morning of 
the world will, by-and-by, dawn upon the earth, and the dead 
shall come forth and shall hear the voice of Him who is the 
resurrection and the life. 

Paul says: If our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. He could take down the 
clay temple, and leave that, but he had a better house. He 
says in one place: I am in a strait betwixt two; having a 
desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; never- 
theless to abide in the flesh is more needful for me. To me, 
it is a sweet thought to think that death does not separate 
us from the Master. A great many people are living con- 
tinually in the bondage of death, but if I have eternal life 
death cannot touch that; it may touch the house I live in; 
it may change my countenance and send my body away to the 
grave, but it cannot touch this new life. To me it is very 



30 HEAVEN. 



sad to think that so many professed Christians look upon 
death as they do. 

I received some time ago a letter from a friend in London, 
and I thought, as I read it, I would take it and read it to 
other people and see if I could not get them to look upon 
death as this friend does. He lost a loved mother. In 
England it is a very common thing to send out cards in 
memory of the departed ones, and they put upon them great 
borders of black — sometimes a quarter of an inch of black 
border — but this friend has gone and put on gold; he did not 
put on black at all; she had gone to the golden city, and so 
he just put on a golden border; and I think it a good deal 
better than black. I think when our friends die, instead of 
putting a great black border upon our memorials to make 
them look dark, it would be better for us to put on gold. 

It is not death at all ; it is life. Some one said to a per- 
son dying: "Well, you are in the land of the living yet." 
" No," said he, " I am in the land of the dying yet, but I 
am going to the land of the living; they live there and never 
die." This is the land of sin and death and tears, but up 
yonder they never die. It is perpetual life; it is unceasing 

" It is a glorious thing to die," was the testimony of Han- 
nah More on her deathbed, though her life had been sown 
thick with the rarest friendships, and age had not so weak- 
ened her memory as to cause her to forget those little ham- 
lets among the cliffs of her native hills, or the mission- 
schools she had with such perseverance established, and 
where she would be so sadly missed. 

As some one has said : 

" There is a soft, a downy bed ; 

Tis fair as breath of even; 
A couch for weary mortals spread, 
Where they may rest the aching head, 

And find repose — in heaven ! 



ITS INHABITANTS. 31 

" There is an hour of peaceful rest, 

To mourning wanderers given. 
There is a joy for souls distressed, 
A balm for every wounded breast, 

Tis found alone — in heaven!" 

KNOWING OUR FRIENDS. 

Many are anxious to know if they will recognize their 
friends in heaven. In the 8th chapter of Matthew and the 
11th verse, we read: And I say unto you, that many shall 
come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abra- 
ham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 

Here we find that Abraham, who lived so many hundreds 
of years before Christ, had not lost his identity, and Christ 
tells us that the time is coming when they shall come from 
the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. These men had 
not lost their identity; they were known as Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob. And if you will turn to that wonderful scene 
that took place on the Mount of Transfiguration, you will 
find that Moses, who had been gone from the earth 1,500 
years, was there; Peter, James and John saw him on the 
Mount of Transfiguration; they saw him as Moses; he had 
not lost his name. God says over here in Isaiah, " I will 
not blot your names but of the Lamb's Book of Life." We 
have names in heaven; we are going to bear our names 
there; we will be known. 

Over in the Psalms it says: When I wake in His likeness 
I shall be satisfied. That is enough. Want is written on 
every human heart down here, but there we will be satisfied. 
You may hunt the world from one end to the other, and you 
will not find a man or woman who is satisfied; but in heaven 
we will want for nothing. It says in the 2nd chapter of the 
1st Epistle of John, speaking to followers of Christ: 

" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear 



32 HEAVEN. 



"what we shall be : but we know that when He shall appear, we shall 
be like Him; for we shall see Him as he is. 

" And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
as he is pure." 

Moreover, it seems highly probable; indeed I think it is 
clearly taught by Scripture, that a great many careless Chris- 
tians will get into heaven. There will be a great many who 
will get in by the skin of their teeth, or as Lot was saved 
from Sodom, so as by fire. They will barely get in, but there 
will be no crown of rejoicing. But everybody is not going 
to rush into heaven. There are a great many who won't be 
there. You know we have a class of people who tell us they 
are going into the kingdom of God, whether they are con- 
verted or not. They tell us that they are on their way; that 
they are going there. They tell us all are going there; that 
the good, the bad and indifferent are all going into the 
kingdom, and that they will all be there; that there is no 
difference; and, in other words — if I may be allowed to use 
plain language — they give God the lie. But they say, " We 
believe in the mercy of God;" so do I. I believe in the 
justice of God, too; and I think heaven would be a good 
deal worse than this earth if an unrenewed man were per- 
mitted to go into it. Why, if a man should live forever in 
this world in sin, what would become of this world? It seems 
as if it would be hell itself. Let your mind pass over the 
history of this country and think of some that have lived in 
it. Suppose they never should die; suppose they should 
live on and on forever in sin and rebellion; and do you 
think that God is going to take those men that have re- 
jected His Son, that have rejected the offer of His mercy, 
that have rejected salvation, and have just trampled His law 
under their feet, and have been in rebellion against his laws 
down here? Do you suppose God is going to take them 
right into His Kingdom and let them live there forever? By 
no means! 



ITS INHABITANTS. 33 



NO SALOONS IN HEAVEN. 

No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Now 
let those mothers that have sons who are just commencing a 
dissipated life, wake up; and not rest day nor night until 
their boys are converted by the power of God's grace, be- 
cause no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God. These 
moderate drinkers will become drunkards; no man ever be- 
came a drunkard all at once. How the devil blinds these 
moderate drinkers! I do not know of any sin more binding 
than the sin of intemperance; the man is bound hand and 
foot before he knows it. 

I was reading some time ago an account of snake-wor- 
shiping in India. I thought it was a horrible thing. I read 
of a mother who saw a snake come into her home and coil 
itself around her little infant only six months old, and she 
thought that the reptile was such a sacred thing that she did 
not dare to touch it; and she saw that snake destroy her 
child; she heard its pitiful cries, but dared not rescue it. 
My soul revolted as I read it. But I do not know but we 
have things right here in America that are just as bad as 
that serpent in India — serpents that are coming into many 
a Christian home, and coiling around many a son and bind- 
ing them hand and foot, and the fathers and mothers seem 
to be asleep. 

O, may the Spirit of God wake us up! No drunkard 
shall inherit the kingdom of God; nor rum-seller either. 
Bear it in mind. " Woe be to the man that putteth the 
bottle to his neighbor's lips." I pity any professed Chris- 
tians who rent their property for drinking saloons; I pity 
them from the depths of my heart. If you ever expect to 
inherit the kingdom of God, give it up. If you can never 
rent your property to better purposes you had better let it 
stand empty. This idea that all is going well, and that all 
3 



34: HEAVEN. 



are going into the kingdom of God, whether they repent or 
not, is not taught anywhere in the Scripture. 

There will be no extortioners in heaven: those men that 
are just taking advantage of their brothers; of those men 
who have been unfortunate; whose families are sick; who 
have had to go and mortgage their property, and had snap- 
judgment taken against them by some man who has his 
hand at their throats, and takes every cent that he can get* 
That man is an extortioner. He shall not inherit the king- 
dom of God. I pity a man that gets money dishonestly. 
See the trouble that he has to keep it. It is sure to be 
scattered. If you got it dishonestly you can't keep it; your 
children can't keep it — they haven't got the power. You 
see that all over the country. A man that gets a dollar dis- 
honestly, had better make restitution and pay it back very 
quick or it will burn in his pocket. 

SOME WON'T GET IN. 

In the days of Noah we read that he waded as it were 
through the deluge. He was the only righteous man, but? 
according to the theory of some people, the rest of those men 
who were so foul and so wicked — too wicked to live — God 
just took them and swept them all into heaven, and left the 
only righteous man to go through this trial. Drunkards, and 
thieves and vagabonds all went to heaven, they say. You 
might as well go forward and preach that " you can swear as 
much as you like, and murder as much as you have a mind 
to, and it will all come out right — that God will forgive 
you; God is so merciful." 

Suppose the Governor of a State should pardon out every 
person that the Courts ever convicted, and are now lying in 
its jails and penitentiaries; suppose he should let them all 
loose because he is so merciful that he could not bear to have 
men punished; I think he would not be Governor of that State 



ITS INHABITANTS. 35 

long. These men who are talking about God being so full of 
mercy, that he is going to spare all, and take all men to Heav- 
en, would be the very men to say that such a Governor as that 
ought to be impeached — that he ought not to be Governor. 
Let us bear in mind that the Scripture says there is a certain 
class of people who shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. 
Now, I will give you the sanction — I will give you the Scrip- 
ture; it is a good deal better to just give the Scripture for 
these things, and then if you don't like it you can quarrel 
with Scripture, and not with me. Let no man say that I 
have been saying who is going to heaven and who is not; 
I will let the Scripture speak for itself: "Know ye not 
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? 

But the unrighteous — the adulterers, the fornicators and 
thieves — these men may all inherit it if they will only turn 
away from their sins. " Let the wicked forsake his way, and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts;" but if the unrighteous 
man says: " I will not turn away from sin; I will hold on to 
sin and have heaven," he is deceiving himself. 

A man that steals my pocket-book loses a good deal more 
than I do. I can afford to let him have my pocket-book a 
great deal better than he can afford to take it. See how 
much that man loses that steals my pocket-book. Perhaps 
he may get a few dollars; or he may steal my coat; but he 
does not get much. See how much he has lost. Take an 
inventory of what that man loses if he loses heaven. 
Think of it. No thief shall inherit the kingdom of God. To 
any thief I would say: steal no more. Let him ask God to 
forgive him; let him repent of his sin and turn to God. If 
you get eternal life it is worth more than the whole world. 
If you were to steal the whole world, you wouldn't get much, 
after all. The whole world don't amount to much, if you 
have not eternal life with it, to enjoy yourself in the future. 



ITS HAPPINESS. 




HAT! almost home?" "Yes, almost home," she said, 
And light seemed gleaming on her aged head. 
" Jesus is very precious! " Those who near 
Her bedside stood were thrilled those words to hear. 
" Towards His blest home I turn my willing feet; 
Hinder me not; I go my Lord to meet." 
Silence ensued. She seemed to pass away, 
Serene and quiet as that summer day. 
" Speak," cried through tears her daughter, bending low, 
" One word, beloved mother, ere you go." 
She spoke that word; the last she spoke on earth, 
In whispering tones — that word of wondrous worth : 
" JESUS! " The sorrowing listeners caught the sound, 
But angels heard it with a joy profound. 
Back, at its mighty power, the gates unfold — 
The gates of pearl that guard the streets of gold. 
The harpers with their harps took up the strain, 
And sang the triumphs of the Lord again, 
As through the open portals entered in 
Another soul redeemed from death and sin. 
And as from earth the spirit passed away, 
To dwell forever in the realms of day, 
Those who were left to mourn could almost hear 
The strains of heavenly music strike the ear. 
And to their longing eyes by grace was given, 
In such a scene, as 'twere, a glimpse of heaven. 

—Unknown. 



ITS HAPPINESS. 



If there is one sound above another that will swing open 
the eternal gates, it is the name of Jesus. There are a 
great many pass-words and by-words down here, but that 
will be the countersign up above. Jesus Christ is the " Open 
Sesame " to heaven. Any one that tries to climb up some 
other way, is a thief and a robber. But when we get in, 
what a joy above every other joy we can think of, it will be 
to see Jesus Himself all the time, and to be with Him con- 
tinually. 

Isaiah has given this promise of God to every one that is 
saved through faith: Thine eyes shall see the King in his 
beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off. 
Some of us may not be able to get around the world. We 
may not be able to see any of the foreign countries; but 
every Christian by and by is going to see a land that is very 
far off. This is our Promised Land. John Milton says of 
the saints that have gone already: 

" They walk with God 
High in salvation, and the climes of bliss." 

It 's a blissful climate up there. People down here look 
around a good deal to find a good climate where they won't 
be troubled by any of their pains or aches. Well, the cli- 
mate of heaven is so fine that no pains or aches can hold 
out against it. There will be no room to find fault. We 

(39) 



40 HEAVEN. 



will leave all our pains and aches behind us, and find an 
everlasting health, such as earth can never know. 

But you know the glory of Christ as reigning King of 
heaven, would be something too much for mortal eyes to 
stand. In the sixth chapter of the first epistle to Timothy, 
we read of Christ as the blessed and only Potentate, -the 
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; who only hath immor- 
tality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach in- 
to; whom no man hath seen, nor can see. As mortals, we 
cannot see that light. Our feeble faculties would be daz- 
zled before such a blaze of glory. 

In the 1st chapter and 28th verse of Ezekiel, we find 
where that prophet had a faint glimpse of it: 

" As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of 
rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was 
the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when 
I saw it, I fell upon my face." 

We are amazed at ordinary perfections now. Few of us 
can look the sun square in the face. But when this corrup- 
tible shall have put on incorruption, as Paul says, the pow- 
ers of the soul will be stronger. We will be able to see 
Christ in his glory then. Though the moon be confounded 
and the sun ashamed, yet shall we see Him as He is. This 
is what will make heaven so happy. We all know that great 
happiness cannot be found on earth. Reason, revelation 
and the experience of six thousand years, all tell us that. No 
human creature has the power to give it. Even doing good 
fails to give it right away, for owing to sin in the world 
even the best do not have perfect happiness here. They 
have to wait for heaven; although they may be so near it 
sometimes that they can see heralds of its joy and beauty, 
like Columbus saw the strange and beautiful birds hovering 
around his ships long before he caught sight of America. 

All the joys we are to know in heaven will come from the 



ITS HAPPINESS. 41 



presence of God. This is the leading thought in all that the 
Scripture has to say on the subject. What life on this earth 
is without health, life in heaven would be without the pres- 
ence of God. God's presence will be the very light and life 
of the place. It is said that one translation of the words de- 
scribing the presence of God is " a happy making sight." It 
will be a sight like the return of a long-lost boy to his mother, 
or the first glimpse of your home after you have been a long 
time away. Some of you know how a little sunshine on a 
dark day, or the face of a kind friend in trouble, often cheers 
us up. Well, it will be something like that, only a thousand 
times better. Our perceptions of God will be clearer then, 
and that will make us love him all the more. 

The more we know God, the more we love him. A great 
many of us would love God more if we only got better ac- 
quainted. It gives Christians while on earth a great deal of 
pleasure to think of the perfection of Jesus Christ, but how 
will it be when we see Him as he is? 

WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM. 

Some one asked a Christian once what he expected to do 
when he got to heaven? He said he expected to spend the 
first thousand years looking at Jesus Christ, and after that 
he would look for Peter, and then for James, and for John, 
and all the time he could conceive of would be joyfully 
filled with looking upon these great persons. But it seems 
to me that one look at Jesus Christ will more than reward 
us for all we have ever done for Him down here; for all the 
sacrifices we can possibly make for Him, just to see Him; 
and see only that. But we shall become like Him when we 
once have seen Him, because we shall have His spirit. 
Jesus, the Savior of the world, will be there, and we shall 
see Him face to face. 

It won't be the pearly gates; it won't be the jasper walls, 



42 HE A VEX. 



and the streets paved with transparent gold, that shall make 
it heaven to us. These would not satisfy us. If these 
were all, we would not want to stay there forever. I heard 
of a child whose mother was very sick; and while she lay 
very low 7 , one of the neighbors took the child away to stay 
with her until the mother should be well again. But in- 
stead of getting better, the mother died; and they thought 
they would not take the child home until the funeral was 
all over; and would never tell her about her mother being 
dead. So a while afterward they brought the little girl 
home. First she went in the sitting-room to find her mother; 
then she went into the parlor, to find her mother there; and 
she went from one end of the house to the other, and could 
not find her. At last she said, " Where is my mamma? " 
And when they told her her mamma was gone, the little 
thing wanted to go back to the neighbor's house again. 
Home had lost its attraction to her since her mother was 
not there any longer. No; it's not the jasper walls and the 
pearly gates that are going to make heaven attractive. It 
is the being with God. We shall be in the presence of the 
Redeemer; we shall be forever with the Lord. 

There was a time when I used to think more of Jesus 
Christ than I did of the Father; Christ seemed to be so much 
nearer to me because He had become the Days Man between 
me and God. In my imagination I put God away on the 
throne as a stern judge, but Christ had come in as the medi- 
ator, and it seemed as if Christ was much nearer to me than 
God, the Father. I got over that years ago, when God gave 
me a son, and for ten years I had an only son, and as I looked 
at the child as he grew up, then the thought came to me 
that it took more love for God to give up His Son than it 
did for His Son to die. It would be much easier for me to 
go out and be put to death than to see the son of my bosom, 
my only son, led out and crucified. Think of the love that 
God had for this world when He gave Christ up! 



ITS HAPPINESS. 43 



If you will turn to the 7th chapter of Acts and the 55th 
verse, you will find that when Stephen was being stoned he 
lifted up his eyes, and it seemed as if God just rolled back 
the curtain of time and allowed him to look into the eternal 
city [and see Christ standing at the right hand of God. 
When Jesus Christ went on high He led captivity captive 
and took His seat, for His work was done; His work was 
finished; but when Stephen saw Him He was standing up, 
and I can imagine He saw that martyr fighting, as it were, 
single handed and alone, the first martyr, though many were 
to come after him. You can hear the tramp of the millions 
coming after him, to lay down their lives for the Son of God. 
But Stephen led the van; he was the first martyr, and as he 
was dying for the Lord Jesus Christ he looked up; Christ 
was standing to give him a welcome, and the Holy Ghost 
came down to bear witness that Christ was there. How then 
can we doubt it? 

A beggar does not enjoy looking at a palace. The grand- 
eur of its architecture, is lost upon him. Looking upon a 
royal banquet, does not satisfy the hunger of a starving man. 
But seeing heaven is also having a share in it. There would 
be no joy there, if we did not feel that some of it was ours. 
God unites the soul to Himself. As it says in the 2nd Epis- 
tle of Peter, the 1st chapter and 4th verse, we are made par- 
takers of the divine nature. Now if you put apiece of iron 
in the fire, it very soon loses its dark color, and becomes red 
and hot like the fire, but it does not lose its iron nature. 
So the soul becomes bright with God's brightness, beauti- 
ful with God's beauty, pure with God's purity, and warm 
with the glow of His perfect love, and yet remains a human 
soul. We shall be like Him, but remain ourselves. 

There is a fable that a kind-hearted king was once hunt- 
ing in a forest, and found a blind orphan boy, who was liv- 
ing almost like the beasts. The king was touched with pity 



44 HEAVEN. 



and adopted the boy as his own, and had him taught all 
that can be learned by one who is blind. When he reached 
his twenty-first year the king, who was also a great physician, 
restored the youth his sight, and took him to his palace, 
where surrounded by his nobles and all the majesty and mag- 
nificence of his court, he proclaimed him one of his sons, and 
commanded all to give him their honor and love. The once 
friendless orphan thus became a prince and a sharer in the 
royal dignity, and of all the happiness and glory to be found 
in the palace of a king. Who can tell the joy that over- 
whelmed the soul of that young man, when he first saw the 
king of whose beauty and goodness and-power he had heard 
so much! Who can tell the happiness he must have felt 
when he saw his own princely attire, and found himself 
adopted into the royal family — honored and beloved by all ! 
Now, Christ is the great and mighty King who finds our 
souls in the wilderness of this sinful world. He finds us, 
as it says in the 3d chapter of Revelations, "wretched and 
miserable, and poor and blind and naked." As it says in 
the 1st chapter of the same book, He " washed us from our 
sins in His own blood," and again, in the 61st chapter of 
Isaiah, He has clothed us with a spotless robe of innocence, 
" with the garments of salvation "; He has covered us " with 
a robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself 
with ornaments, and as a bride adorn eth herself with jewels." 
The mission of the gospel to sinners, as we find it in the 
26th chapter of Acts, has been to open their eyes, and to 
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of 
Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins 
and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith 
that is in me. This is what Christ has done for every Chris- 
tian. He has adorned you with the gift of grace and adopt- 
ed you as His child, and as it says in the 3d chapter of 1st 
Corinthians: 



ITS HAPPINESS. 45 



"All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come — all are 
yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 

He has given you His own Word to educate you for 
heaven; He has opened your eyes so that now you see. By 
His grace and your own co-operation your soul is being grad- 
ually developed into a more perfect resemblance to Him. 
Finally, your Heavenly Father calls you home, where you 
will see the angels and saints clothed with the beauty of 
Christ Himself, standing around His throne, and hear the 
word that will admit you into their society: Well done thou 
good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord. In the 16th chapter of John, Christ Himself says: All 
things that the Father hath are mine; therefore, said I, that 
he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto vou. All will 
be yours. Ah, how poor and mean do earthly pleasures seem 
by comparison. How true those lines of a Scotch poet: 

" The world can never give 

The bliss for which we sigh; 
Tis not the whole of life to live, 

Nor all of death to die. 
Beyond this vale of tears 

There is a life above, « 

Unmeasured by the flight of years, 

And all that life is love." 

OVER THE RIVER. 

There is joy in heaven, we are told, over the conversions 
that take place on earth. In the 15th chapter of Luke, and 
the 7th verse we read: I say unto you that likewise joy shall 
be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance. If 
there was going to be an election for President of the United 
States, there would be tremendous excitement — a great com- 
motion. There is probably not a paper from Maine to Cali- 



46 HEAVEN. 

fornia that would not have something on nearly every page 
about the candidate; the whole country would be excited; 
but I doubt if it would be noticed in heaven; I doubt if 
they would take any notice of it at all. If Queen Victoria 
should leave her throne, there would be great excitement 
throughout the nations of the earth; the whole world would 
be interested in the event; it would be telegraphed around 
the world; but it would probably be overlooked altogether 
in heaven. Yet if one little boy or one little girl, one man 
or one woman, should repent of their sins, this day and hour 
that would be noticed in heaven. They look at things dif- 
ferently up there; things that look very large to us, look 
very small in heaven; and things that seem very small to us 
down here, may be very great up yonder. Think of it! By 
an act of our own, we may cause joy in heaven. The thought 
seems almost too wonderful to take in. To think that the 
poorest sinner on earth, by an act of his own, can send a 
thrill of joy through the hosts of heaven! 

The Bible says: " There is joy in the presence of the an- 
gels," not that the angels rejoice, but it is " in the presence " 
of the angels. I have studied over that a great deal, and 
often wondered what it meant. " Joy in the presence of the 
angels?" Now, it is speculation; it may be true, or it may 
not; but perhaps the friends who have left the shores of 
time — they who have gone within the fold — may be looking 
down upon us; and when they see one they prayed for while 
on earth repenting and turning to God, it sends a thrill of 
joy to their very hearts. Even now, some mother who has 
gone up yonder may be looking down upon a son or daugh- 
ter, and if that child should say: "I will meet that mother 
of mine; I will repent; yes, I am going to join you, mother," 
the news, with the speed of a sunbeam, reaches heaven, and 
that mother may then rejoice, as we read, " In the presence 
of the angels." 



ITS HAPPINESS. 47 



In Dublin, after one of the meetings, a man walked into 
the inquiry room with his daughter, his only one, whose 
mother had died some time before, and he prayed: " Oh God, 
let this truth go deep into my daughter's heart, and grant that 
the prayers of her mother may be answered to-day — that she 
may be saved." As they rose up she put her arms about his 
neck and kissed him, and said: " I want to meet my moth- 
er; I want to be a Christian." That day she accepted 
Christ. That man is now a minister in Texas. The daugh- 
ter died out there a little while ago, and is now with her 
mother in heaven. What a blessed and joyful meeting it 
must have been! It may be a sister, it may be a brother, 
who is beckoning you over — 

11 Over the river they beckon to me, 

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side; 
The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 

But their voices are drowned in the rushing tide. 
There's one with ringlets of sunny gold, 

And eyes, the reflection of heaven's own blue; 
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold, 

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. 
We saw not the angels who met him there, 

The gates of the city we could not see; 
Over the river, over the river, 

My brother stands waiting to welcome me." 

Whoever it is, do not delay. 

The story is told of a father who had his little daughter 
out late in the evening. The night was dark, and they had 
passed through a thick woods to the brink of a river. Far 
away on the opposite shore a light twinkled here and there 
in the few scattered houses, and farther off still, blazed the 
bright lamps of the great city to which they were going. The 
little child was weary and sleepy, and the father held her in 
his arms while he waited for the ferryman, who was at the 
other side. At length they saw a little light; nearer and 



48 HEAVEN. 



nearer came the sound of the oars, and soon they were safe 
in the boat. 

" Father," said the little girl. 

"Well, my child?" 

" Its very dark, and I can't see the shore ; where are we 
going?" 

" The ferryman knows the way, little one; we will soon 
be over." 

" O, I wish we were there, father!" 

Soon in her home loving arms welcomed her, and her 
fears and her tremor were gone. Some months pass by, and 
this same little child stands on the brink of a river that is 
darker and deeper, more terrible still. It is the River of 
Death. The same loving father stands near her, distressed 
that his child must cross this river and he not be able to go 
with her. For days and for nights he and her mother have 
been watching over her, leaving her bedside only long 
enough for their meals, and to pray for the life of their prec- 
ious one. For hours she has been slumbering, and it seems 
as if her spirit must pass away without her waking again, 
but just before the morning watch she suddenly awakes 
with the eye bright, the reason unclouded, and every faculty 
alive. A sweet smile is playing upon her face. 

" Father," she says, " I have come again to the river side, 
and am again waiting for the ferryman to come and take me 
across." 

" Does it seem as dark and cold as when you went over 
the other river, my child?" 

"Oh no! There is no darkness here. The river is cov- 
ered with floating silver. The boat coming towards me 
seems made of solid light, and I am not afraid of the ferry- 
man." 

"Can you see over the river, my darling?" 

" Oh yes, there is a great and beautiful a city there, all 



ITS HAPPINESS. 49 



filled with light; and I hear music such as the angels make!" 

" Do you see any one on the other side?" 

"Why yes, yes, I see the most beautiful form; and He 
beckons me now to come. Oh ferryman, make haste! I 
know who it is! It is Jesus; my own blessed Jesus. I shall 
be caught in his arms. I shall rest on his bosom — I come 
— I COME." 

And thus she crossed over the river of Death, made like 
a silver stream by the presence of the blessed Redeemer. 

SOMETHING MORE. 

There is hardly a man anywhere, no matter how high up 
or how rich he may be, but will tell you, if you get his con- 
fidence, that he is not happy. There is something he wants 
that he cannot get, or there is something he has that he 
wants to get rid of. It is very doubtful if the Czar of all 
the Russias is a happy man, and yet he has about all he can 
get. Although Queen Victoria has castles, and millions at 
her command, and has besides what most sovereigns lack, the 
love of her subjects, it is a question whether she gets much 
pleasure out of her position. If they love the Lord Jesus 
Christ and are saved, then they may be happy. If they 
know they will get into heaven like the humblest of 
their subjects, then they may rest secure. Paul, the humble 
tent-maker, will have a higher seat in heaven than the best 
and greatest sovereign that ever ruled the earth. If the 
Czar should meet John Bunyan, the poor tinker, up in heaven, 
he no doubt would find him the greater man. 

The Christian life is the only happy one. Something is 
always wanting. When we are young we have grand enter- 
prises, but we soon spoil them by being too rash. We want 
experience. When we get old we have the experience, but 
then all the power to carry out our schemes is gone. " Hap- 
py is that people whose God is the Lord. " The only way to 
4 



50 HEAVEN. 



be happy is to be good. The man who steals from necessity 
sins because he is afraid of being unhappy, but for the mo- 
ment he forgets all about how unhappy the sin is going to 
make him. Man is the best and noblest thing on earth, as 
bad as he is, and it is easy to understand how he fails to find 
true happiness in anything lower than himself. The only 
object better than ourselves is God, and that is all we can 
ever be satisfied with. Gold, that is mere dross dug up out 
of the earth, does not satisfy man. Neither does the honor 
and praise of other men. The human soul wants something 
more than that. Heaven is the only place to get it. No won- 
der that the angels who see God all the time are so happy. 

The publicans went to hunt up John the Baptist in the 
wilderness, to know what they should do. Some of the high- 
est men in the land went out to consult the hermit to know 
how to get happiness. " Whosoever trusteth in the Lord 
happy is he." It is because there is no real happiness down 
here, that earth is not worth living for. It is because it is 
all above, that heaven is worth dying for. In heaven there is 
all life and no death. In hell there is all death and no life. 
Here on earth there is both living and dying, which is be- 
tween the two. If we are dead to sin here we will live in 
heaven, and if we live in sin here we must expect eternal' 
death to follow. 

Do you know that every sinner dies twice? They first 
become spiritually dead to sin — that is the renewed soul. 
It then begins to feel the joy of heaven. The joys of heaven 
reach down to earth as many and as sure as the rays of the 
sun. Then comes physical death, which makes way for 
the physical heaven. Of course the old sinful body has to be 
left behind. We cannot take that into heaven. It will be 
a glorified body that we will get at the resurrection, but not 
a sinful body. Our bodies, will be transfigured like Christ's. 



ITS HAPPINESS. 51 



Besides, there will be no temptation then. If there was 
no temptation in the world now, God could not prove us. 
He wants to see if we are loyal. That is why He put the 
forbidden tree in Paradise; that accounts for the Canaanite 
in Israel. When we plant a seed, after a time it disappears 
and brings forth a seed that looks much the same, 1 t>ut still it 
is a different seed. So our bodies and the bodies of those 
we know and love will be raised up, looking much the same 
but still not all the same. Christ took the same body into 
heaven that was crucified on the cross, unless He was trans- 
formed in the cloud after the disciples lost sight of Him. 
There must have been some change in the appearance of 
Christ after His resurrection, for Mary Magdalene, who was 
the first one who saw Him did not know Him, neither did the 
disciples, who walked and talked with Him about Himself, 
and even did not recognize Him until He begun to ask a 
blessing at supper. Even Peter did not know Him when 
He appeared on the sea-shore. Thomas would not believe 
it was Christ until he saw the scars of the nails and the 
wound in His side. But we will all know Him in heaven. 

There are two things that the Bible make as clear and 
certain as eternity. One is that we are going to see Christ, 
and the other that we are going to be like Him. God will 
never hide His face from us there, and Satan will never show 
his. 

There is not such a great difference between grace and 
glory after all. Grace is the bud,, and glory the blossom. 
Grace is glory begun, and glory is grace perfected. It won't 
come hard to people who are serving God down here to do 
it when they go up yonder. They will change places, but 
they won't change employments. 

HIGHER UP. 

The moment a person becomes heavenly- minded and gets 



52 HEAVEN. 



his heart and affections set on things above, then life becomes 
beautiful, the light of heaven shines across our pathway and 
we don't have to be all the time lashing ourselves and up- 
braiding ourselves because we are not more with Christ. 
Some one asked a Scotchman if he was on the way to 
heaven, and he said: "Why, man, I live there; I am not on 
the way." He lived there. Now we want to live in heaven ; 
while we are walking in this world it is our privilege to have 
our hearts and affections there. I once heard Mr. Morehouse 
tell a story about a lady in London that found one of those 
poor, bedridden saints, and then she found a wealthy woman 
who was all the time complaining and murmuring at her lot. 
Sometimes I think people that God does the most for in 
worldly things think the less of Him and care less about Him 
and are the most unproductive in His service. But this lady 
went around as a missionary visiting the poor, and she used to 
go and visit this poor bedridden saint, and she said if she 
wanted to get cheered up and her heart made happy she 
would go and visit her. [There is a place in Chicago, and has 
been for years, where a great many Christians have always 
gone when they want to get their faith strengthened; they 
go there and visit one of these saints. And a friend told me 
that she thought that the Lord kept one of those saints in 
most of the cities to entertain angels as they passed over 
the cities on errands of mercy, for it seems that these saints 
are often visited by the heavenly host.] Well, this lady 
missionary had wanted to' get this wealthy woman in con- 
tact with this saint, and she invited her to go a number of 
times; and finally the lady consented to go, and when she 
got to the place she went up the first flight of stairs, and it 
was not very clean, and was dark. 

"What a horrible place," the lady said; "why did you 
bring me here?" 

The lady smiled and she said, " It is better higher up." 



ITS HAPPINESS. 53 



And then they went up another flight, and it didn't grow 
any lighter, and she complained again, and the lady said, 
" It .is better higher up." And then they went up another 
flight and it was no lighter, and the missionary kept saying, 
" It is better higher up." And when they got to the fifth 
story they opened the door and entered a beautiful room, a 
room that was carpeted, and plants were in the window and 
a little bird was in a cage singing, and there was that saint 
just smiling, and the first thing the complaining woman had 
to say to her was, 

"It must be hard for you to be here and suffer." 

"Oh, that is a very small thing; it is not very hard," she 
said; "it is better higher up." 

And so if things don't go just right, if they do n't go to 
suit us here, we can say " It is better higher up, it is better 
further on," and we can lift up our hearts and rejoice as we 
journey on towards home. 

You know those beautiful lines — 

" Beyond the smiling and the weeping, 

I shall be soon: 
Beyond the waking and the sleeping, 
Beyond the sowing and the reaping, 

I shall be soon. 
Love, rest, and home! 

Sweet Home! 
Lord, tarry not, but come. 

"Beyond the rising and the setting, 

I shall be soon;. 
Beyond the calming and the fretting, 
Beyond remembering and forgetting, 

I shall be soon. 
Love, rest, and home ! 

Sweet Hope! 
Lord, tarry not, but come. 1 ' 




LOYE Thy kingdom, Lord, 
The house of Thine abode — 
The Church our blest Redeemer saved 
With His own precious blood. 

44 1 love Thy church, God! 
Her walls before Thee stand, 
Dear as the apple of Thine eye, 
And graven on Thy hand. 

4 'For her my tears shall fall, 
For her my prayers ascend; 
To her my cares and toils be given 
Till toils and cares shall end. 

" Beyond my highest joy 
I prize her heavenly ways, 
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
Her hymns of love and praise. 

44 Jesus, Thou Friend divine, 
Our Savior and our King, 
Thy hand from every snare and foe, 
Shall great deliverance bring. 

" Sure as Thy truth shall last, 
To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yield, 
And brighter bliss of heaven." 

— Dwight. 



ITS CERTAINTY. 




SHINE in the light of God; 

His likeness stamps my brow; 
Through the valley of Death my feet have trod, 

And I reign in glory now! 

No breaking heart is here, 

No keen and thrilling pain, 
No wasted cheek where the frequent tear 

Hath rolled and left its stain. 
* * * ***** 

friends of mortal years, 

The trusted and the true, 
Ye are watching still in the valley of tears, 

But I -wait to welcome you. 

Do I forget? Oh, no! 

For memory's golden chain 
Shall bind my heart to the hearts below 

Till they meet to touch again. 

Each link is strong and bright, 

And love's electric flame 
Flows freely down, like a river of light, 

To the world from whence I came. 

Do you mourn when another star 

Shines out from the glittering sky? 
Do you weep when the raging voice of war 

And the storms of conflict die ? 

Then why should your tears run down, 

And your hearts be sorely riven, 
For another gem in the Savior's crown, 

And another soul in heaven ! 

— From an English Friend. 



ITS CERTAINTY. 



There are some people who go so much upon their rea- 
son that they reason away God. They say God is not a per- 
son we can ever see. They say God is a spirit. So He is, but 
He is a person too; and became a man and walked the earth 
once. Scripture tells us very plainly that God has a dwell- 
ing place. There is no doubt whatever about that. A dwell- 
ing place indicates personality. God's dwelling place is in 
heaven. He has a dwelling place, and we are going to be 
inmates of it. Therefore we will see Him. 

In the 8th chapter and 30th verse of the first Book of 
Kings we read: 

•■ And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy 
people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place : and hear thou 
in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou nearest, forgive." 

This idea that heaven is everywhere and nowhere is not 
according to Scripture. Heaven is God's habitation, and 
when Christ came on earth He taught us to pray: Our 
Father which art in heaven. This habitation is called "the 
city of eternal life." Think of a city without a cemetery — 
they have no dying there. If there could be such a city as 
that found on this earth what a rush there would be to it! 
How men would seek to get into that city! You can't find 
one on the face of this earth. A city without tears — God 
wipes away all the tears up yopder. This is a time of weep- 
ing, but by-and-by there is a time coming when God shall 

(57) 



58 HEAVEN. 



call us where there will be no tears. A city without pain, 
a city without sorrow, without sickness, without death. 
There is no darkness there. The Lamb is the light thereof. 
It needs no sun, it needs no moon. The paradise of Eden was 
as nothing compared with this one. The tempter came into 
Eden and triumphed, but in that city nothing that defileth 
shall ever enter. There will be no tempter there. Think of a 
place where temptation cannot come. Think of a place where 
we will be free from sin; where pollution cannot enter, and 
where the righteous shall reign forever. Think of a city 
that is not built with hands, where the buildings do not grow 
old with time; a city whose inhabitants no census has num- 
bered except the Book of Life, which is the heavenly direc- 
tory. Think of a city through whose streets runs no tide 
of business, where no nodding hearses creep slowly with 
their burdens to the tomb; a city without griefs or graves, 
without sins or sorrows, without marriages or mournings, 
without births or burials; a city which glories in having 
Jesus for its king, angels for its guards, and whose citizens 
are saints! 

We believe this is just as much a place and just as much 
a citv as New York is, or London or Paris. We believe in 
it a good deal more, because earthly cities will pass away, 
but this city will remain forever. It has foundations whose 
builder and maker is God. Some of the grandest cities 
the world has ever known did not have foundations strong 
enough to last. 

INCENSE TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN. 

Take for instance Tyre and Sidon. They were rival cities 
something like New York and Philadelphia, or St. Louis and 
Chicago. When the patriarch Jacob gave his sons his bless- 
ing, he spoke of Sidon. In the splitting up of Canaan 
among the tribes of Israel by Joshua, Tyre and Sidon seem 



ITS CERTAINTY. 59 



to have fallen to the lot of Asher, though the old inhabitants 
were never fully driven out. It says in the 3d chapter of 
Mark: Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea, 
and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from 
Judea and from Jerusalem, and from Idumcea and from be- 
yond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great 
multitude, when they heard what things he did, came unto 
him. We find in the 3d chapter and 8th verse of Acts, 
moreover, that the captain of the guards who was taking 
Paul prisoner to appear before Caesar at Rome, when the ship 
touched at Sidon let Paul go and visit some of his friends 
there to refresh himself. From this it has been inferred that 
at that time there must have been a Christian church there, 
although the people generally worshipped the Queen of 
Heaven, who was always represented as crowned with the 
crescent moon. 

There are some persons now, you know, who adore a Queen 
of Heaven, whom they picture with the moon beneath her 
feet. Even the Hebrews, when they saw " the moon walking 
in brightness," along the clear skies of Palestine, impressed 
by its beauty, fell into the same idolatry. The children 
gather wood, says Jeremiah, and the fathers kindle the fire, 
and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the 
queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other 
gods. In answer to the prophet's reproof we find them saying, 
in the 44th chapter, beginning at the 16th verse: 

" As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of 
the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee, but we will certainly do 
whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense 
unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, 
as we have done.' 1 

Is it then any wonder that we should find addressed to 
them, a little farther on, this language: 

*'So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of 



60 HEAVEN. 



your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have commit- 
ted; therfore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a 
curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day." 

In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in 
marriage, and there will be no queen in heaven. 

Tyre is mentioned by Joshua as " a strong city," and both 
Isaiah and Ezekiel speak of it. In fact, there is a great 
deal in Scripture about it. Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the 
Great, and other kings have fought over it, and hosts of 
lives have been lost in taking what is now a ruin. Alexan- 
der once destroyed it, but it was afterwards rebuilt. We 
find in the inspired Word of God descriptions of what this 
city once was, that exceed in beauty anything that history 
can tell us* The whole of the 27th chapter of Ezekiel is 
taken up with Tyrus, as it was called then: 

" thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a mer- 
chant of the people for many isles,. Thus saith the Lord God : Tyrus, 
thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst 
of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made 
all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir; they have taken cedars from 
Lebanon to make masts for thee." 

So it goes on: 

" Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou 
spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of 
Elishah was that which covered thee.*' 

A little farther on it says : 

" Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy 
pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy 
men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the 
midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy 
ruin. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast 
corrupted thy wisdom by reason of the brightness : I will cast thee to 
the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee." 

The terrible prophesies of its downfall have all been liter- 



ITS CERTAINTY. 61 



ally fulfilled. We find them in the 26th chapter beginning 
with the 3d verse : 

"Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, Tyrus, 
and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea caus- 
eth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, 
and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and 
make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading 
of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord 
God: and it shall become a spoil to the nations."' ' 

Travelers now describe the site of Tyre as " a heap of ruins, 
broken arches and vaults, tottering walls and towers, with a 
few starving wretches housed amid the rubbish, " A large 
part of it is under water, a place to spread nets upon, and 
the rest has become indeed " like the top of a rock. " 

Thus passes away the glory of the world. This book tells 
us of the glory of a city that we no longer see, but it has 
been. It tells us also of the glory of a greater city that we 
have not seen, but will if we but follow in the way. 

" Oh happy harbor of God's saints! 

sweet and pleasant soil! 
In thee no sorrow can be found, 

Nor grief nor care nor toil. 
Thy gardens and thy goodly walks 

Continually are green, 
Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 

As nowhere else are seen. 
No candle needs, no moon to shine, 

No glittering star to light, 
For Christ the King of Righteousness 

Forever shineth bright," 

OUR NAMES RECORDED. 

We are told that one time just before sunrise, two men 
got into a dispute about what part of the heavens the sun 
would first appear in. They became so excited over it that 
they fell to fighting, and beat each other over the head so 



62 HEAVEN. 



badly that when the sun did come up neither of them could 
see it. So there are persons who go on disputing about 
heaven until they dispute themselves out of it, and more 
who dispute over hell until they dispute themselves into it. 

The Hebrews in their writings tell us of three distinct 
heavens. The air, the wind, — the place where the birds fly, 
— is one heaven; the firmament where the stars are is an- 
other, and above that is the heaven of heavens, where God's 
throne is, and the mansions of the Lord are — those man- 
sions of light and peace which are the abode of the blessed, 
the homes of the Redeemer and the redeemed. 

This is the heaven where Christ is. This is the place we 
read of in Deuteronomy, where it says: Behold the heaven 
and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth 
also with all that therein is. 

In Corinthians, Paul, speaking for himself, says: 

" I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the 
body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell, God 
knoweth;) so such an one was caught up to the third heaven." 

Some people have wondered what that third heaven 
means. That is where God dwells, and where the storms 
do not come. There sits the incorruptible judge. Paul, 
when he was caught up there heard things that it was not law- 
ful for him to utter, and he saw things that he could not speak 
of down here. The higher up we get in spiritual matters, 
the nearer we seem to heaven. There our wishes are ful- 
filled at last. We may cry out like the psalmist: One thing 
have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I 
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life 
to behold the beauty of the Lord! 

We are assured by Christ Himself that our names will be 
written in heaven if we are only His. In the 10th chapter 
of Luke and the 20th verse it reads: Notwithstanding in 
this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but 



ITS CERTAINTY. 63 



rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. 
A little while before these words were uttered by the Savior, 
calling together seventy of His disciples, He sent them forth 
in couples to preach the gospel to all men. There are peo- 
ple now-a-days who have no faith in revivals. Yet the great- 
est revival the world ever saw was during the three or four 
years that John the Baptist and Jesus were preaching, fol-. 
lowed by the preaching of the apostles and disciples after 
Christ left the earth. For years the country was stirred from 
one end to the other. There were probably men then who 
stood out against the revival. They called it spasmodic, 
and refused to believe in it. It was a nine days' wonder and 
would pass away in a little while, and there would be noth- 
ing left of it. No doubt men talked in those days just as 
they talk now. All the way down from the time of 
Christ and His apostles there have been men who have op- 
posed the work of God, and some of them professing to be 
disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, all because it has not 
been done in their way. When the spirit of God comes, He 
works in his own way. We must learn the lesson that we 
are not to mark out any channels for Him to work in, for He 
will work in His own way when He comes. 

These disciples came back after their work. The spirit 
had worked with them, and the devils were subject to them, 
and they had power over disease, and they had power over 
the enemy, and they were filled with success. They were 
probably having a sort of jubilee meeting, and Christ comes 
in and says: rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you; 
but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. 
This brings us face to face with the doctrine of assurance. 
I find a great many people up and down Christendom who 
do not accept this doctrine. They believe it is impossible 
for us to know in this life whether we are saved or not. If 
this be true, how are we going to get over what Christ has 



64 HEAVEN. 



said as we find it here recorded? If my name is written in 
heaven, how can I rejoice over it unless I know it? These 
men were to rejoice that their names were already there, 
and whoever are children of God their names are there, sent 
on for registry before. 

A party of Americans a few years ago, on their way from 
London to Liverpool, decided that they would stop at the 
Northwestern Hotel, but when they arrived they found the 
place had been full for several days. Greatly disappointed, 
they took up their baggage and were about starting off, when 
they noticed a lady of the party preparing to remain. 

"Are you not going, too?" they asked. 

"Oh no," she said, "I have good rooms all ready." 

"Why, how does that happen?" 

"Ob," she said, " I just telegraphed on ahead, a few days 
ago." 

Now that is what the children of God are doing; they are 
sending their names on ahead; they are securing places in 
the mansions of Christ in time. If we are truly children of 
God our names have gone on before, and there will be places 
awaiting us at the end of the journey. You know we are 
only travelers down here. We are away from home. 
When the war was going on, the soldiers on the battle-field, 
the Southern soldiers and the Northern soldiers, wanted noth- 
ing better to live in than tents. They longed for the war to 
close that they might go home. They cared nothing to have 
palaces and mansions on the battle-field. Well, there is a 
terrible battle going on now, and by and by when the war 
is over God will call us home. The tents and altars are 
good enough for us while journeying through this world. It 
is only a night, and then the eternal day will dawn. 

THE BOOK OF LIFE. 

Two ladies met on a train not long ago, one of them going 
to Cairo and the other to New Orleans. Before they reached 



ITS CERTAINTY. 65 



Cairo they had formed a strong attachment for each other, 
and the Cairo lady said to the lady who was going to New 
Orleans: 

" I wish you would stay for a few days in Cairo ; I would 
like to entertain you." 

" Well," said the other, " I would like to very much, but 
I have packed up all my things and sent them ahead, and I 
have n't anything only just what I have on, but they are good 
enough to travel in." 

I learned a lesson there. I said, Almost anything is good 
enough to travel in, and it is a great deal better to have our 
joys and comforts ready for us in heaven, waiting until we 
get there, than to wear them out in our toilsome, trying, 
earthly journey. 

Heaven is the place of victory and triumph. This is the 
battle-field; there is the triumphal procession. This is the 
land of the sword and the spear; that is the land of the 
wreath and the crown. Oh, what a thrill of joy will shoot 
through the hearts of all the blessed when their conquests 
will be made complete in heaven; when death itself, the 
last of foes, shall be slain, and Satan dragged as captive at 
the chariot wheels of Christ! Men may cavil and laugh and 
sneer as much as they will at this doctrine of assurance, but 
it is clearly taught in Scripture, nevertheless. 

A great many laugh at the idea of there being books in 
heaven; but in the 12th chapter of the prophecy of Daniel, 
and the 1st verse, we find: 

" And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which 
standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of 
trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same 
time; and at that time the people shall be delivered, every one that 
shall be found written in the book." 

There is a terrible time coming upon this earth; darker 
days than we have ever seen, and they whose names are 
5 



66 HEAVEN. 



written in the Book of Life shall be delivered. Then again, 
in the 6th chapter of Phillippians and the 3d verse, we read: 

11 And I entreat thee, also, true yoke- fellow, help those women which 
laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other 
my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the Book of Life." 

Paul, writing to the Christians at Phillippi, where he had 
so much opposition, and where he was cast into jail, says in 
effect: Just take my regards to the good brethren who 
worked with me and whose names are written in the Book 
of Life. This shows that they taught the doctrine of assur- 
ance in the very earliest days of Christianity. Why should 
we not teach it and believe it now? 

I am told by Eastern travelers, — men who have been in 
China — that they have in their courts two great books ; and 
when a man is tried and found innocent, they write his name 
down in the book of life. If he is found guilty, they write 
his name down in the book of death; and I believe firmly 
that every man or woman has his or her name in the Book 
of Death or the Book of Life. Your name can't be in both 
books at the same time. You can't be in death and in life 
at the same time, and it is your own privilege to know which 
it is. 

In the 13th chapter of Revelation and the 8th verse, we 

read: 

." And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [that is, the 
anti- Christ], whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 

And again, in the 20th chapter of Revelations and the 
12th verse: 

" And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the 
book was opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of 
life; and the dead are judged out of those things which were writ- 
ten in the books, according to their works." 

Again, in Revelations, 21st chapter and 27th verse: 



ITS CERTAINTY. 67 



"And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defile th t 
neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they 
which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." 

There can be no true peace, there can be no true hope, 
there can be no true comfort, where there is uncertainty. I 
am not fit for God's service; I cannot go out and work for 
God if I am in doubt about my own salvation. 

NO ROOM FOR DOUBT. 

A mother has a sick child. The child is just hanging be- 
tween life and death. There is no rest for that mother. 
You have some one on a train that is wrecked, and the news 
comes that twenty have been killed and wounded, and their 
names are not given; there is a terrible uncertainty, and there 
is no rest or peace until you know the facts. The reason 
why there are so many in the churches who will not go out 
and help others, is that they are not sure they are saved 
themselves. If I thought I was dying myself, I would be in 
a poor condition to save anyone else. Before I can pull any- 
one else out, I must have a firm footing on shore myself. 
We can have this complete assurance if we will. It does 
not do to feel we are all right, but we must know it. We 
must read our titles clear to mansions in the skies; the apos- 
tle John says: Beloved, now are we the sons of God. He 
does not say we are going to be. 

People, when asked if they are Christians, give some of 
the strangest answers you ever heard. Some will say, if you 
ask them: " Well — well — well, I — I hope I am. " Suppose 
a man should ask me if I am an American. Would I say 
"Well I — well I — I hope I am? " I know that I was born in 
this country, and I know I was born of the Spirit of God more 
than twenty years ago. All the infidels in the world could not 
convince me that I have not a different spirit than I had be- 
fore I became a Christian. That that is born of the flesh is 



68 HEAVEN. 



flesh, and that that is born of the spirit is spirit, and a man 
can soon tell whether he is born of the spirit by the change 
in his life. The spirit of Christ is a spirit of love, peace, joy, 
humility and meekness, and we can soon find out whether 
we have been born of that spirit or not; we are not to be 
left in uncertainty. Job lived back there in the dark ages, 
but he knew. The dark billows came rolling and surging 
up against him, but in the midst of the storm you can hear 
his voice saying: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." He 
did not guess. 

A man may have his name written in the highest chron- 
icles down here, but the record may be lost; he may have 
it carved in marble and still it may perish; some charitable 
institution may bear his name, and yet he may be soon for- 
gotten; but his name will never be erased from the scrolls 
that are kept above. Seeking to perpetuate one's name on 
earth is like writing on the sand by the sea-shore; to be 
perpetual it must be written on the eternal shores. No one 
thinks Pontius Pilate is a saint because he is mentioned in 
the creed. It has been said that the way to see our names 
as they stand written in the Book of Life, is by reading the 
work of sanctification in our own hearts. It needs no mirac- 
ulous voice from heaven, no extraordinary signs, no unusual 
feeling. We need only find our hearts desiring Christ and 
hating sin; our minds obedient to the divine commands. 

We may be sure that belonging to some church is not going 
to save us, although every saved man ought to be connected 
with one. When Daniel died in Babylon, no one had to 
hunt up any old church record to find out if he was all 
right. When Paul was beheaded by Nero, no one had to 
look over the register. 

They lived so that the world knew what they were. Paul 
says: I am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have 
committed unto Him against that day. There is assurance. 



ITS CERTAINTY. j69 



"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" he says, 
"neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come." He just 
challenges them all, but they could not separate him from the 
love that was in Christ. 

It is dishonoring to God to go on hoping and only hoping 
that we u are going " to be saved. Yet there are some who 
ought not to have assurance. It would be an unfortunate 
thing for any unconverted church member to have assurance. 
There are some who profess great assurance who ought not 
to have it — those whose lives do not correspond. This class 
is represented by the man at the wedding feast who did not 
have on a wedding garment. 

FALSE PROFESSIONS. 

They are like some lilies — fair to see but foul of smell. 
They are dry shells with no kernel inside. The crusaders 
of old used to wear a painted cross upon their shoulders. 
So there are a good many now-a-days who take up crosses 
that sit just as lightly — mere things of ornament — passports 
to respectability, cheap make-believes, for a struggle that 
has never been made, and a crown that has never been 
striven for. 

You may very often see dead fish floating with the stream, 
but you never saw a dead fish swimming against it. Well, 
that is your false believer; that is the hypocrite. Profes- 
sion is just floating down the stream, but confession is swim- 
ming against it, no matter how strong the tide. The sanc- 
tified man and the unsanctified one look at heaven very 
differently. The unsanctified man simply chooses heaven 
in preference to hell. He thinks that if he must go to 
either one he would rather try heaven. It is like a man 
with a farm who has a place offered him in another country, 
where there is said to be a gold mine. He hates to give up 



70 HEAVEN, 



all he has and take any risk. But if he is going to be ban- 
ished, and must leave, and has his choice of living in a wil- 
derness or digging in a coal-pit, or else take the gold mine, 
then there is no hesitation. The unregenerate man likes 
heaven better than hell, but be likes this world the best of 
all. When death stares him in the face, then he thinks he 
would li ke to get to heaven. The true believer prizes hea- 
ven above every thing else, and is always willing to give up 
the world. Everybody wants to enjoy heaven after they 
die, but they don't want to be heavenly minded while they 
live. To the Christian it is a sure promise, and there is no 
room for doubt. 

The heir to some great estate, while a child, thinks more of 
a dollar in his pocket than all his inheritance. So even some 
professing Christians sometimes are more elated by a passing 
pleasure than they are by their title to eternal glory. In a 
little while we will be there. How glorious is the thought! 
Everything is prepared. That is what Christ went up to 
heaven for. In a little while we will be gone. We are — 

" Only waiting till the shadows 

Are a little longer grown, 
Only waiting till the glimmer 

Of the day's last beam is flown: 
Then from out the gathered darkness, 

Holy, deathless stars shall rise, 
By whose light our souls shall gladly 

Tread their pathway to the skies.'" 



ITS RICHES. 




ERUSALEM, my Home, 
Where shines the royal Throne, 
Each king casts down his golden crown 
Before the Lamb thereon. 
Thence flows the crystal River, 
And flowing on forever 
With leaves and fruits on either band, 
The'Tree of Life shall' stand. 
In blood- washed robes, all white and fair, 
The Lamb shall lead his chosen there, 
While clouds of incense fill the air- 
Jerusalem, my Home. 

Jerusalem, my Home, 
Where saints in glory reign, 
Thy haven safe, when shall I 
Poor storm-tossed pilgrim, gain ? 
At distance dark and dreary, 
With sin and sorrow weary, 
For thee I toil, for thee I pray, 
For thee I long alway. 
And lo! mine eyes shall see thee, too; 
0, rend in twain, thou veil of blue, 
And let the Golden City through — 

Jerusalem, my Home ! 

— Hopkins. 



ITS RICHES. 



No man thinks himself rich until he has all he wants. 
Very few people are satisfied with earthly riches. If they 
want any thing at all that they cannot get, that is a kind of 
poverty. Sometimes the richer the man the greater the 
poverty. Somebody has said that getting riches brings care; 
keeping them brings trouble; abusing them brings guilt; and 
losing them brings sorrow. 

It 's a great mistake to make so much of riches as we do. 
But there are some riches that we cannot praise too much. 
They never pass away. They are the treasures laid up in 
Heaven for those who trulv belong to God. No matter how 
rich or elevated we may be here, there is always something 
that we want. The greatest chance the rich have over the 
poor, is the one they enjoy the least — that of making them- 
selves happy. Worldly riches never make any one truly 
happy. We all know, too, that they often take wings and 
fly away. Midas got gold, so that whatever he touched 
turned into it, but he was not much the better for it with 
his long ears. There is a great deal of truth in some of these 
old fables. Money, like time, ought not to be wasted, but I 
pity that man who has more of either than he knows how to 
use. There is no truer saying than that man by doing 
good with his money, stamps, as it were, the image of God 
upon it, and makes it pass current for the merchandise of 
heaven; but all the wealth of the universe would not buy a 

(73) 



74 HEAVEN. 



man's way there. Salvation must be taken as a gift for the 
asking. There is no man so poor that he may not be a 
heavenly millionaire. 

A BAD LIFE- PRESERVER. 

How many are worshiping gold to-day! Where war has 
slain its thousands, gain has slain its millions. Its history 
is the history of slavery and oppression in all ages. At this 
moment what an empire it has. The mine with its drudg- 
ery, the manufactory with its misery, the plantation with its 
toil, and the market and exchange with their haggard and 
care-worn faces — these are but specimens of its menial ser- 
vants. Titles and honors are its rewards, and thrones are 
at its disposal. Among its counselors are kings, and many 
of the great and mighty of the earth are its subjects. This 
spirit of gain tries even to turn the globe itself into gold. 
I It is related that Tarpeia, the daughter of the governor of 
the fortress situated on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, was cap- 
tivated with the golden bracelets of the Sabine soldiers, and 
agreed to let them into the fortress if they would give her 
what they wore upon their left arms. The contract was 
made; the Sabines kept their promise. Tatius, their com- 
mander, was the first to deliver his bracelets and shield. 
The coveted treasures were thrown upon the traitress by 
each of the soldiers, till she sank beneath their weight and 
expired. 

Thus does the weight of gold carry many a man down. 

When the Steamship Central America went down, several 
hundred miners were on board, returning to their early 
homes and friends. They had made their fortunes, and 
expected much happiness in enjoying them. In the first of 
the horror gold lost its attraction to them. The miners took 
off their treasure-belts and threw them aside. Carpet bags 
full of shining gold-dust were emptied on the floor of the 



ITS RICHES. 75 



cabin. One of them poured out one hundred thousand dol- 
lars worth in the cabin, and bade any one take it who would- 
Greed was over-mastered, and the gold found no takers. 
Dear friends! it is well enough to have gold, but sometimes 
it is a bad life-preserver. Sometimes it is a mighty weight 
that crushes us down to hell. 

The Rev. John Newton one day called to visit a family 
that had suffered the loss of all they possessed by fire. - He 
found the pious mistress, and saluted her with: 
" I give you joy, madam." 

Surprised, and ready to be offended, she exclaimed: 
" What! joy that all my property is consumed?" 
M Oh no," he answered, " but joy that you have so much 
property that fire cannot touch." 

This allusion to her real treasures checked her grief and 
brought reconciliation. As it says in the 10th chapter of 
Proverbs: In the house of the righteous is much treasure; 
but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble. I have never 
seen a dying saint who was rich in heavenly treasures who 
had any regret; I have never heard them say they had lived 
too much for God and heaven. 

GETTING WATER-LOGGED. 

A friend of mine says that he was at the River Mersey, in 
Liverpool, a few years ago, and a vessel had to be towed 
with a great deal of care into the harbor ; it was clear down 
to the water's edge, and he wondered why it didn't sink. 
Pretty soon there came another vessel, without any help at 
all; it didn't need any tug to tow it in, but it sailed right 
up the Mersey past the other vessels ; and he made inquiry 
and he found the vessel that had to be towed in was what 
they call water-logged — that it was loaded with lumber and 
material of that kind; and having sprung a leak had partially 
sunk, and it was very hard work to get into the harbor. 



76 HEAVEN. 



Now, I believe there are a great many professed Christians, 
a great many perhaps that are really Christians, who get 
water-logged. They have too many earthly treasures, and 
it takes nearly the whole church — the whole spiritual power 
of the church to look after these worldly Christians, to keep 
them from going back entirely into the world. Why, if the 
whole church were, as John "Wesley said, " hard at it, and 
always at it," what a power there would be, and how soon 
we would reach the world and the masses ; but we are not 
reaching the world because the church itself has become con- 
formed to the world and worldly-minded, and, because so 
many are wondering why they don't grow in grace while they 
have more of the earth in their thoughts than God. 

The ministers would not have to urge people to live for hea- 
ven if their treasures were up there ; they could not help it; 
their hearts would be there, and if their hearts were there 
their minds would be up there, and their life would center 
towards heaven. They could not help living for heaven 
if their treasures were there. 

A little girl one day said to her mother, " Mamma, my 
Sunday school teacher tells me that this world is only a place 
in which God lets us live a while, that we may prepare for a 
a better world. But, mother, I do not see anybody prepar- 
ing. I see you preparing to go into the country, and Aunt 
Eliza is preparing to come here; but I do not see any one 
preparing to go there ; why don't they try to get ready?" 

A certain gentleman in the South before the war, had a 
pious slave, and when the master died they told him he had 
gone to heaven. 

The old slave shook his head, " Ps fraid massa no gone 
there," he said. 

"But why? Ben," he was asked. 

" Cos, when massa go North, or go a journey to the Springs, 
he talk about it a long time, and get ready. I never hear 



ITS RICHES. 77 



him talk about going to heaven; never see him get ready to 
go there I" 

So there are a good many who don't get ready. Christ 
teaches in the Sermon on the Mount to 

" Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; But 
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor 
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, 
for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." 

TREASURES OF THE HEART. 

It does not take a great while to tell where a man's treas- 
ure is. In fifteen minutes conversation with most men vou 
can tell whether their treasures are on earth or in heaven. 
Talk to a statesman about the country, and you will see his 
eye light up; you will find he has his heart there. Talk to 
some of these business men, and tell them where they can 
make a thousand dollars, and see their interest; their hearts 
are there. You talk to these fashionable people who are liv- 
ing just for fashion, of its affairs, and you will see their eyes 
kindle; they are interested at once; their hearts are there. 
Talk to a politician about politics, and you see how sudden- 
ly he becomes interested. But talk to a child of God, who 
is laying up treasures in heaven, about heaven and about 
his future home, and see what enthusiasm. " Where your 
treasure is, there will your heart be also." 

Now, it is just as much a command for a man to lay up 
his treasures in heaven as it is that he should not steal. 
Some people think all the commandments are in those ten 
that were given back on Sinai, but when Jesus Christ was 
here, He gave us a good many other commandments. There 
is another commandment in this Sermon on the Mount, that 
we ought to " seek first the kingdom of God and His right- 
eousness, and all these things shall be added; " and here is 
a command that we are to lay up our treasures in heaven 



78 HEAVEN. 



and not on earth. The reason there are so many broken 
hearts in this land, the reason there are so many disappoint- 
ed people, is because they have been laying up their treas- 
ures down here. 

The worthlessness of gold, for which so many are striving, 
is illustrated by a story that Dr. Arnot used to tell. 

A ship bearing a company of emigrants, has been driven 
from her course and wrecked on a desert island, far from the 
reach of man. There is noway of escape; but they have a 
good stock of food. The ocean surrounds them, but they 
have plenty of seeds, and a fine soil, and a genial sun, so 
that there is no danger. Before the plans are laid, an ex- 
ploring party discovers a gold mine. There the whole party 
go to dig. They labor day after day and month after month. 
They get large heaps of gold. But spring is past, and not 
a field has been cleared, not a grain of seed put into the 
ground. The summer comes and their wealth increases; 
but their stock of food grows small. In the fall they find 
that their heaps of gold are worthless. Famine stares them 
in the face. They rush to the woods, they fell trees, dig up 
the roots, till the ground, sow the seed. It is too late! 
Winter has come and their seed rots in the ground. They 
die of want in the midst of their treasures. 

This earth is the little isle; eternity the ocean round it; on 
this shore we have been cast. There is a living seed; but 
the mines of gold attract us. We spend spring and sum- 
mer there; winter overtakes us in our toil; we are without 
the Bread of Life, and we are lost. Let us then who are 
Christians, value all the more the home which holds the 
treasures that no one can take away. Dr. Muhlenberg, a 
Lutheran clergyman, has written beautifully: 

" Who would live alway, away from his God, 
Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode ; 
Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains, 
And the saints of all ages in harmony meet, 



ITS RICHES. 79 



Their Savior, and brethren transported, to greet; 
While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, 
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul? 
That heavenly music, what is it I hear? 
The notes of the harpers ring sweet on my ear. 
To see soft unfolding those portals of gold — 
The King, all arrayed in His beauty, behold ! 
Oh give me, oh give me, the wings of a dove, 
Let me hasten my flight to those mansions above ! 
Ay, 'tis now that my soul on swift pinions would soar, 
And in ecstacy bid earth adieu evermore." 

A BLACK-BOARD LESSOR". 

When I was in San Francisco a few years ago, I went 
into a Sabbath school the first Sunday I was there. It was 
a rainy day, and there were so few that the superintendent 
thought of dismissing them, but instead, afterwards invited 
me to speak to the whole school as one class. The lesson 
was that passage from the Sermon on the Mount: Lay not 
up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust 
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. 
I invited a young man to the blackboard, and we proceeded 
to compare a few things that some people have on earth, and 
a few things that other people have in heaven. 

" Now," said I, "name some earthly treasure." 

They all shouted "gold." 

"Well, that is so," I said, "I suppose that is your greatest 
treasure out here in California. Now let us go on; what is 
another? " 

A second boy shouted, " lands." 

" Well," I said, "we will put down lands." 

" What else do the people out here in California think a 
good deal of and have their hearts set on?" 

They said " Houses." 

" Put that down ; what else?" 

"Pleasure." 



80 HEAVEN. 



" Put that down." 

" Honor — fame." 

" Put them down." 

" Business." 

" Yes, " I said : " a great many people have got their hearts 
buried in their business — put that down." And, as if a lit- 
tle afraid, one of them said " dress," and the whole school 
smiled. 

" Put that down," I said. " Why, I believe there are some 
people in the world who think more of dress than any other 
thing. They just live for dress. I heard not long ago from 
very good authority, of a young lady who was dying of con- 
sumption, and she had just been living in the world and for 
the world, and it seemed as if the world had taken full pos- 
session of her, and she thought she would die Thursday 
night, and Thursday she wanted them to crimp her hair, so 
that she would look beautiful in her coffin. But she did n't 
die Thursday night. She lingered through Friday, and Fri- 
day she did n't want them to take her hair down, but to keep 
it up until she passed away. And the friends said she 
looked very beautiful in the coffin ! Just what people wear 
— the idea of people having their heart set upon things of 
that kind ! 

"And what else, now? " Well, they were a little ashamed 
to say it, but one said, 

" Rum." 

" Well," I said, " put it down. There is many a man 
thinks more of the rum-bottle than he does of the Kingdom 
of God. He will give up his wife, he will give up his home 
and mother, and character and reputation forever for the 
rum-bottle. Many a man by his life is crying out, 

" Give me rum, and I will give you heaven, and all its 
glories. I will sell my wife and children. I will make 
them beggars and paupers. I will degrade and disgrace 
them for the rum-bottle. That is my treasure." 



ITS RICHES. 81 



" ; 0h, thou rum bottle! I worship thee,' is the cry of 
many — they turn their backs on heaven with all its glories 
for rum. Some of th.em thought, when that little boy said 
4 rum,' that he made a mistake, that it was not a treasure, 
but it is a treasure to thousands." Another one said, 

" Fast horses." 

Said I, " Put it down. There is many a man that thinks 
a good deal of fast horses, and he wants to go out and take 
a fast horse and drive Sunday, and spend his Sabbath in 
this way." And after we finished, and thought of every 
thing we could, I said, " Suppose we just take down some 
of these heavenly treasures." 

" And," said I, " What is there now that the Lord wants 
us to set our hearts and affections on?" and they all said, 

"Jesus." 

u That is good; we will put Him down first at the head 
of the list. Now what else?" And they said: 

" Angels." 

" Put them down. We will have their society when we 
get to heaven. That is a treasure up there, really. What 
else?" 

" Well, the friends that have died in Christ, that have fal- 
len asleep in Christ." 

"Put them down. Death has taken them from us now, 
but we will be with them by and by. What else?" 

" Crowns." 

" Yes, we are going to have a crown, a crown of glory, 
a crown of righteousness, a crown that fadeth not away. 
What else?" 

" The tree of life." 

" Yes," I said, " the tree of life. We shall have a right 
to it. We can go to that tree and pluck its fruit, eat and 
live forever. What else?" 

" The river of life." 
6 



82 HEAVEN. 



" Yes, we shall walk upon the banks of that clean river." 

" Harps," another one said. 

Another one said " palms." 

"Yes," I said, "put them down. Those are treasures 
that we will have there." 

" Purity." 

" Yes, there will be none but the pure there. White 
robes, without spot or wrinkle on our garments. A great 
many find many flaws in our characters down here, but by 
and by Christ will present us before the Father without spot 
and without wrinkle, and we shall stand there complete in 
Him," I said. "Can you think of anything else?" And 
one of them said: 

" Yes, we will have a new song. It is the song of Moses 
and the Lamb. I don't know just who wrote it or how, but 
it will be a glorious song. I suppose the singing we have 
here on earth will be nothing compared with the songs of 
that upper world. Do you know the principal thing we are 
told we are going to do in heaven is singing, and that is why 
men ought to sing down here. We ought to begin to sing 
here so that it won't come strange when we get to heaven. 
I pity the professed Christian who has not a song in his heart 
— who never feels like singing. It seems to me if we are 
truly children of God, we will want to sing about it. And 
so, when we get there, we can't help shouting out the loud 
hallelujahs of heaven." 

Then I said, "Is there anything else?" Well, they went 
on. I can't give you all, because we had to have two col- 
umns put down of the heavenly treasures, and we stood there 
a little while and drew the contrast between the earthly and 
the heavenly treasures. We looked at them a little while, 
and when we came to ,put them all down right along be- 
side Christ, the earthly treasure slooked pretty small, after all. 



ITS RICHES. 83 



What would all this world full of gold be compared with Jesus 
Christ? You that have Christ, would you like to part with 
Him for gold? Would you like to give him up for all the 
honor the earth can bestow on you for a few months or a few 
years? Think of Christ! Think of the treasures of heaven. 
And then think of these earthly treasures that we have our 
hearts set upon, and that so many of us are living for. 

God blessed that lesson upon the blackboard in a marvel- 
ous way, for the man who had been writing down the treas- 
ures on the board happened to be an unconverted Sunday 
school teacher, and he had gone out there to California to 
make money, and his heart was set upon gold, and he was 
living for that instead of God. 

That was the idol of his heart, and do you know God con- 
victed him at that blackboard, and the first convert that God 
gave me on the Pacific coast was that man, and he was the 
last man that shook hands with me when I left San Francis- 
co. He saw how empty the earthly treasures were, and how 
grand and glorious the riches of heaven. Oh, if God would 
but open your eyes — and I think if you are honest and ask 
Him to do it He will — He will show you how empty this 
world is in comparison with what He has in store. 

There are a great many people who are wondering why 
they don't mount up on wings, as it were, and why they 
don't make some progress in the divine life; why it is that 
they don't grow more in grace. I think the reason is they 
have too many earthly treasures. We need not be rich to 
have our hearts set on riches. 

We need not go in the world more than other people to 
have our hearts there. I believe the Prodigal got into the far 
country long before his feet got there. When his heart got 
there he was there. And there is many a man who does 
not mingle so much in the world as others do, but his heart 
is there, and he would be if he could, and God looks at 
the heart. 



84 HEAVEN. 



Now, what we want to do is to obey the voice of the Mas- 
ter, and instead of laying up treasures on earth, lay them up in 
heaven. If we do that, bear in mind, we will never be dis- 
appointed. 

It is clear that idolators are not going to enter the king- 
dom of God. I may make an idol of my business; I may 
make an idol of the wife of my bosom; I may make idols 
of my children. I do n't think you have got to go to hea- 
then countries to find men guilty of idolatry. I think that 
you will find a great many right here who have idols in their 
hearts. Let us pray that the spirit of God may banish those 
idols from our hearts, that we may not be guilty of idolatry; 
that we may worship God in spirit and in truth. Anything 
that comes between me and God is an idol — anything, I 
don't care what it is; business is all right in its place, and 
there is no danger of my loving my family too much if I 
love God more; but God must have the first place; and if 
He don't then the idol is set up. 

ALL ETERNITY FOR REST. 

Not the least of the riches of heaven will be the posses- 
sion of those w r ants of the soul, which are so much sought 
after down here but are never found — such as infinite knowl- 
edge, perfect peace and satisfying love. Like a beautiful 
likeness that has been marred — daubed all over with streaks 
of black, and is then restored to its original beauty, so the 
soul is restored to its full beauty of color when it is washed 
with the blood of Jesus Christ. The senseless image on the 
canvas cannot be compared however in any other way with 
the living, rational soul. 

Could we but see some of our friends who have gone on 
before us we would very likely feel like falling down before 
them. John, although he had seen so many strange things, 
when one of the bright angels stood before him to reveal 



ITS RICHES. 85 



some of the secrets of heaven, fell to worship him. He says 
in the last chapter of Revelation: 

"And 1 John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had 
heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel 
which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, see thou do 
it not; for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, 
and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God." 

The diamond we know not only reflects the light, but is a 
little sun shining by a light of its own. So the polished 
diamond of the soul reflects the beauty and light of God and 
preserves its own personality as well. 

Among the wants which we have on earth is the thirst for 
knowledge. As much as sin has weakened man's mental 
faculties, it has not taken away any of his desire for knowl- 
edge. But with all his efforts, with all that he thinks he 
knows about astronomy, chemistry and geology, and the rest 
of the sciences, his knowledge of the secrets of nature is yet 
limited. 

There are ever so many things we don't know. 

Thousands of astronomers have lived and died, and the ages 
of the world have rolled on, and it was but the other day, as 
it were, that they found out that the planet Mars had two 
moons. Perhaps in ages to come some one will find out 
that they are not moons at all. This is what most of our 
human knowledge amounts to. 

There is not one of our college professors, and many of 
them have gone nearly everywhere the mind can reach, but 
is anxious to learn more and more, to find out new things, 
to make new discoveries. If we were as familiar with all 
the stars of the firmament as we are with our own earth, yet 
we would not be satisfied. 

Not until we are like God can we comprehend the infinite. 

Even the imperfect glimpses of God that we get by faith, 
only intensify our desire for more. For now, as Paul says 



86 HEAVEN. 



in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, We see through a 
glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; 
but then shall I know even as also I am known. The word 
Paul used, properly translated, is " mirror." Now we see 
God, as it were, in a looking-glass — but then face to face. 

Suppose we knew nothing of the sun except what we saw 
of its light reflected from the moon? Would we not wonder 
about its immense distance, about its dazzling splendor, 
about its life-giving power? Now all that we see, the sun, 
the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, the flowers, and 
above all, man, are a grand mirror in which the perfection 
of God is imperfectly reflected. 

Another want that we have is rest. We get tired of toil- 
ing. Yet there is no real rest on earth. We find in the 4th 
chapter of Hebrews, beginning with the 9th verse : 

" There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he 
that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, 
as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, 
lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." 

Now, while we all want rest, I think a great many people 
make a mistake when they think the church is a place of 
rest; and when they unite with the church they have a false 
idea about their position in it. There are a great many that 
come in to rest. It says here: There remaineth a rest for 
the people of God, but it don't tell us that the church is a 
place of rest; we have all eternity to rest in. We are to 
rest by and by; but we are to work here, and when our 
work is finished, the Lord will call us home to enjoy that 
rest. There is no use in talking about rest down here in the 
enemy's country. We cannot rest in this world, where 
God's Son has been crucified and cast out. I think that a 
great many people are going to lose their reward just be- 
cause they have come into the church with the idea that they 
are to rest there, as if the church was working for the re- 



ITS RICHES. 87 



ward, instead of each one building over against his own 
house, each one using all his influence toward the building 
up of Christ's kingdom. 

In the 14th chapter of Revelation and the 13th verse, it 
says: 

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,Write, Blessed 
are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the 
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do fol- 
low them." 

Now, death may rob us of money. Death may rob us of 
position. Death may rob us of our friends; but there is one 
thing death can never do, and that is, rob us of the work 
that we do for God. That will live on forever. " Their 
works will follow them." How much are we doing? Any- 
thing that we do outside of ourselves, and not with a mean 
and selfish motive, that is going to live. We have the priv- 
ilege of setting in motion streams of activity that will flow 
on when we are dead and gone. 

It is the privilege of every one to live more in the future 
than they do in the present, so that their lives will tell in 
fifty or a hundred years more than they do now. 

John Wesley's influence is a thousand- fold greater to-day 
than it was when he was living. He still lives. He lives in 
the lives of thousand and hundreds of thousands of his fol- 
lowers. 

Martin Luther lives more to-day than he did centuries ago, 
when he was living in Germany. He only lived one life for 
a while. But now, look at the hundreds and thousands 
and millions of lives that he is living. There are between 
fifty and sixty millions of people that profess to be followers 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, as taught by Martin Luther, that 
bear his name. He is dead in the sight of the world, but 
his " works do follow him." He still lives. 

The voice of John the Baptist is ringing through the world 



88 HEAVEN. 



to-day, although nearly 1,900 years have passed away. 
Herod thought when he beheaded him that he was hushing 
his voice, but it is ringing all through the earth to-day. 
John the Baptist lives, because he lived for God; but he has 
entered into his rest, and " his works do follow him." And 
if they can see what is going on upon the earth, how much 
joy they must have up yonder to think that they have set 
these streams in motion, and that this work is going on — 
being carried on after them. 

If a man lives a mean, selfish life, he goes down in the 
grave, and his name and everything goes down in the grave 
with him. If he is ambitious to leave a record behind him, 
with a selfish motive, his name rots with his body. But if a 
man just gets outside of himself and begins to work for God, 
his name will live forever. Why, you may go to Scotland 
to-day, and you will find the influence of John Knox over 
every mountain in Scotland. It seems as if you could almost 
feel the breath of that man's prayer in Scotland to-day. His 
influence still lives. " Blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord." They rest from their labors and their works do fol- 
low them." Blessed rest in store; we will rest by and by; 
but we don't want to talk about rest down here 

If I am to wipe a tear from the cheek of that fatherless 
boy, I must do it down here. It is not said in Scripture 
that we will have the privilege of doing that hereafter. If 
I am going to help some fallen man up that has been over- 
taken by sin, I must do it here. We are not taught any- 
where in Scripture that we are going to have the glorious 
privilege of working for God in the world to come. We are 
not going to have the privilege of being co-workers with 
God in the future — but that is our privilege to-day. We 
may not have it to-morrow. It may be taken from us to- 
morrow; but we can enter into the vineyard and do some- 
thing to-day before the sun goes down. We can do some- 
thing now before we go to glory. 



ITS RICHES. 89 



Another want that we feel down here, is love. Heaven is 
the only place where the conditions of love can be fulfilled. 
There it is essentially mutual. Everybody loves everybody 
else. In this world of wickedness and sin it seems impossi- 
ble for people to be all on a perfect equality. When we 
meet people who are bright and beautiful and good, we have 
no difficulty in loving them. All the people of heaven will 
be like that. There will be no fear of misplaced confi- 
dences there. We will never be deceived by those we love. 
When a suspicion of doubt fastens upon any one who 
loves, their happiness from that moment is at an end. There 
will be no suspicion there. 

" Beyond these chilling winds and gloomy skies, 
Beyond death's cloudy portal, 
There is a land where beauty never dies — 
Where love becomes immortal.' ' 



ITS REWARDS. 




OT here ! not here !. Not where the sparkling waters 

Fade into mocking sands as we draw near; 
Where, in the wilderness, each footstep falters, 
I shall be satisfied; but oh! not here! 

There is a land where every pulse is thrilling 
With rapture earth's sojourners may not know, 

Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, 
And peacefully life's storm- tossed currents flow. 

Satisfied? satisfied? The spirit's yearning 

For sweet companionship with kindred minds, 

The silent love that here meets no returning, 
The inspiration which no language finds — 

I shall be satisfied. The soul's vague longings, 
The aching void which nothing earthly fills ? 

Oh ! what desires upon my soul are thronging 
As I look upward to the heavenly hills. 

Thither my weak and weary steps are tending, 
Savior and Lord! with thy frail child abide, 

Guide me toward home, where all my wanderings ended, 
I then shall see Thee, and " be satisfied.'" 

— Anonymous. 



ITS REWARDS. 



If I understand things correctly, whenever you find a man 
or woman who is looking to be rewarded here for 
doing right, they are unqualified to work for God; because 
if they are looking for the applause of men, looking for the 
reward in this life, it will just disqualify them for the service 
of God, because they are all the while compromising truth. 

They are afraid of hurting some one's feelings. They are 
afraid that some one is going to say something against them, 
or there will be some articles written against them. Now, 
we must trample the world under our feet if we are going 
to get our reward hereafter. If we live for God we must 
suffer persecution. The kingdom of darkness and the 
kingdom of light are at war, and have been, and will be as 
long as Satan is permitted to reign in this world, and as 
long as the kingdom of darkness is permitted to exist, there 
will be a conflict, and if you want to be popular in the 
kingdom of God, if you want to be popular in heaven, and 
get a reward that shall last forever, you will have to be un- 
popular here. 

If you seek the applause of men, you can't have the Lord 
say " Well done " at the end of the journey. You can't 
have both. Why? Because this world is at war with God. 
This idea that the world is getting better all the while is 
false. The old natural heart is just as much at enmity with 
God as it was when Cain slew Abel. Sin leaped into the 

(93) 



94 HEAVEN. 



world full grown in Cain. And from the time that Cain was 
born into the world to the present, man by nature has been 
at war with God. This world was not established in grace, 
and we have to fight "the world, the flesh and the devil;' 
and if we fight the world, the world won't like us; and if we 
fight the flesh, the flesh won't like us. We have to mortify 
the flesh. We have to crucify the old man and put him un- 
der — and then we will get our reward, and it will be a glori- 
ous reward. 

It says in the 16th chapter of Luke and the 15th verse: 

" And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves be- 
fore men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly es- 
teemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." 

We must go right against the current of this world. If 
the world has nothing to say against us, we can be pretty 
sure that the Lord Jesus Christ has very little to say for us. 
There are those who do not like to go against the current of 
the world. They say they know this and that is wrong, but 
they do not say a word against it lest it might make them 
unpopular. If we expect to get the reward we must fight 
the good fight of faith. For all such, as Paul has said, there 
is laid up a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the right- 
eous judge shall give us at that day. 

FEAR OF DEATH. 

How little we realize the meaning of the word eternity! 
The whole time between the creation of the world and the 
ending of it would not make a day in eternity. In time, it 
is like the infinity of space, whose centre is everywhere and 
whose boundary is nowhere. We read in this Epistle to the 
Hebrews, in the 2nd chapter and 14th verse: 

" Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, 
he, also himself, likewise took part of the same: that through death 
he might destroy him that had the power of death — that is the devil — 



ITS REWARDS. 95 



and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime 
subject to bondage." 

There are a great many of God's professed children who 
live in constant bondage, in the constant fear of death. I 
believe that it is dishonoring to God. I believe that it is 
not His will to have one of His children live in fear for one 
moment. If you know the truth as it is in Christ, there need 
be no fear; there need be no dread, because death will 
only hasten you on to glory; and your names are already 
there. 

And then the next thought is for those who are dear to 
us. I believe that it is not only our privilege to have our 
names written in heaven, but those of children whom God 
has given us; and our hearts ought to go right out for them. 
The promise is not only to us, but to our children. Many 
a father's and many a mother's heart is burdened with anx- 
iety for the salvation of their children. If your own name 
is there, let your next aim in life be to get the children that 
God has given you, there also. 

I have three children, and the greatest desire of my heart 
is that they may be saved; that I may know that their 
names are written in the Book of Life. I may be taken 
from them early; I may leave them in this changing world 
without a father's care; without a father to watch over 
them; and I have often said to myself I would rather have 
them come to my grave after I am dead and gone, and drop 
a tear upon it, and say, " my father, while he lived, cared 
for my soul," than I would have them do anything else. 

A mother died in one of our Eastern cities a few years 
ago, and she had a large family of children. She died of 
consumption, and the children were brought in to her when 
she was dying. As the oldest one was brought in she gave 
it her last message and her dying blessing; and as the next 
one was brought in she put her hand upon its head and gave 



96 HEAVEN. 



it her blessing; and then the next one was brought in, and 
the next, until at last they brought in the little infant. She 
took it to her bosom and pressed it to her loving heart, and 
her friends saw that it was hastening her end; that she was 
excited, and as they went to take the little child from her, 
she said: "My husband, I charge you to bring all these 
children home with you." And so God charges us as par- 
ents to bring our children home with us; not only to have 
our own names written in heaven, but those of our children 
also. 

An eminent Christian worker in New York, told me a 
story that affected me very much. 

A father had a son who had been sick some time, but he 
did not consider him dangerous; until one day he came 
home to dinner and found his wife weeping, and he asked, 
"What is the trouble?" 

" There has been a great change in our boy since morn- 
ing," the mother said, "and I am afraid that he is dying; I 
wish you to go in and see him, and, if you think he is, I wish 
you to tell him so, for I cannot bear to tell him." 

The father went in and sat down bv the bed-side, and he 
placed his hand upon his forehead, and he could feel the 
cold, damp sweat of death, and knew its cold, icy hand was 
feeling for the chords of life, and that his boy was soon to be 
taken away, and he said to him: 

" My son, do you know you are dying?" 

The little fellow looked up at him and said: 

"No; am I? Is this death that I feel stealing over me, 
father?" 

" Yes, my son, you are dying." 

" Will I live the day out?" 

"No; you may die at any moment." 

He looked up to his father and he said: "Well, I will be 
with Jesus to-night, won't I, father?" 



ITS REWARDS. 97 



And the father answered: "Yes, my boy, you will spend 
to-night with the Savior," and the father turned away to con- 
ceal the tears, that the little boy might not see him weep; but 
he saw the tears, and he said: 

" Father, don't you weep for me ; when I get to heaven I 
will go straight to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can 
remember you have tried to lead me to Him." 

I would rather have my children say that of me after I am 
dead and gone, or if they die before me I would rather they 
should take that message to the Master — that ever sin.ce they 
can remember I have tried to lead them to the Master — than 
to have a monument over me reaching to the skies. 

We ought not to look upon death as we do. Bishop He- 
ber has written of a dead friend: 

44 Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, 

Though sorrow and darkness encompass the tomb; 
Thy Savior has passed through its portals before thee, 

And the lamp of His love is thy guide through the gloom; 
Thou art gone to the grave; we no longer behold thee, 

Nor tread the rough paths of the world by thy side, 
But the wide arms of Mercy are spread to enfold thee, 

And sinners may die, since the Sinless has died." 

The roll is being called, and one after another summoned 
away, but if their names are there, if we know that they are 
there, saved, how sweet it is, after they have left us, to think 
that we shall meet them by and by; that we shall see them 
in the morn when the night has worn away. 

During the late war a young man lay on a cot, and they 
heard him say, " Here, here! " and some one went to his cot 
and wanted to know what he wanted, and he said, "Hark! 
hushl don't you hear them?" "Hear who?" was asked. 
"They are calling the roll of heaven," he said, and pretty 
soon he answered, " Here! " — and he was gone. If our names 
are in the Book of Life, by and by when the name is called, 
we can say with Samuel, "Here, Lord Jesus, " and fly away 
7 



98 HEAVEN. 



to meet him. And if our children are called away early, 0, 
it is so sweet to think that they died in Christ; that the 
great Shepherd gathers them in His arms and carries them 
in His bosom, and that we shall meet them by and by. 

PAUL, THE CHRISTIAN HEEO. 

The way to get to heaven is to be saved through faith in 
Jesus Christ. 

We get salvation as a gift, but we have to work it out, just 
as if we got a gold mine for a gift. 

I don't get a crown by joining church, or renting a pew. 

There was Paul. He got his crown. He had many a 
hard fight; he met Satan on a good many battle-fields, and 
he overcame him and wore the crown. It would take about 
ten thousand of the average Christians of this day to make 
one Paul. 

When I read the life of that Apostle, I blush for the 
Christianity of the nineteenth Century. It is a weak and 
sickly thing. 

See what he went through. He, five times was scourged. 
The old Roman custom of scourging was to take the 
prisoner and bind his wrists together and bend him over in 
a stooping posture, and, with sharp pieces of steel braided 
into a lash, the Roman soldier would bring the lash down 
upon the bare back of the prisoner and cut him through the 
skin, so that men sometimes died in the very act of being 
scourged. But Paul says, he was scourged five different 
times. Now if we should get one stripe upon our backs what 
a whining there would be; there would be forty publishers 
after us before the sun went down, and they would want to 
publish our lives, that they might make capital out of it. 
But Paul says, Five times received I forty stripes, save one. 
That was nothing for him. Take your stand by his side. 



ITS REWARDS. 99 



" Paul, you have been beaten by these Jews four times, 
and they are going to give you thirty-nine stripes more; 
what are you going to do after you get out of the difficulty; 
what are you going to do about it all?" 

"Do?" says he, "I will do this one thing; I will press towards 
the mark of the prize of my high calling; I am on my way 
to get my crown." He was not going to lose his crown. 
" Don't think that a few stripes will turn me away; these 
light afflictions are nothing." 

And so they put on thirty-nine more stripes. 

He had sprung into the race for Christ, as it were, and 
was leaping towards heaven. If you will allow me the ex- 
pression, the devil got his match when he met Paul. He 
never switched off on to a side-track. He never sat down 
to write a letter to defend himself. All the strength that 
he had he gave to Christ. He never gave a particle to the 
world nor to himself to defend himself. This one thing I 
do, he said, I am not going to lose the crown. See that no 
man taketh your crown. 

Thrice was he beaten with rods. Take your stand again 
beside him. 

" Now, Paul, they have beaten you twice, and they are 
going to beat you again. What are you going to do? Are 
you going to continue preaching? If you are, let me give 
you a little advice. Now, don't be quite so radical; be a 
little more conservative; just use a little finer language, and 
kind of cover up the cross with beautiful words and flowery 
sentences, and tell men that they are pretty good after all; 
that they are not so bad, and try and pacify the Jews; make 
friends with them, and get in with the world, and the world 
will think more of you. Don't be so earnest; don't be so 
radical, Paul; now come, take our advice. What are you 
going to do?" 

u Do? " he says, " I do this one thing — I press towards the 



100 HEAVEN. 



mark of the prize of my high calling." So they put on the 
rods, and every blow lifts him nearer God. 

Take your stand again. They begin to stone him. That 
is the way they killed those who did not preach to suit them. 

It seems as if he was about to be paid back in his own 
coin, for when Stephen was stoned to death, Paul, then known 
as Saul, cheered on the crowd. 

" Now Paul, this is growing serious; hadn't you better 
take back some of the things you have said about Christ? 
What are you going to do?" 

"Do?" he says, "if they take my life I will only get the 
crown the sooner." 

He would not budge an inch. He had something that the 
world could not give; he had something it could not take 
away; lie had eternal life, and he had in store a crown of 
glory. 

THESE LIGHT AFFLICTIONS. 

Three times was he shipwrecked; a day and a night in 
the deep. Look at that mighty apostle, a whole day and 
night in the deep. There he was — shipwrecked, and for 
what? Was it to make money? He was not after money. 
He was just going from city to city, and town to town, to 
preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and to lift up the 
cross wherever he had opportunity. He went down to Cor- 
inth and preached eighteen months, and he didn't have a lot 
of the leading ministers of Corinth to come on the platform 
and sit by his side when he preached. There was not a 
man that stood by him. When he got down to Corinth he 
didn't have some of the leading business men to stand by 
him and advise him; but the little tent-maker arrives in 
Corinth a perfect stranger, and the first thing he does is to 
find a place where he can make a tent; he does not go to a 
hotel; his means will not allow it; but he goes where he can 
make his bread by the sweat of his brow. Think of that 



ITS REWARDS. 101 



great apostle making a tent, and then getting on the corner 
of a street and preaching, and perhaps once in a while he 
would get into a synagogue, but the Jews would turn him 
out; they did'nt want to hear him preach anything about 
Jesus the crucified. The Jews didn't like that, and they 
turned him out, and after toiling eighteen months in that 
city, they took him outside of the city and gave him thirty- 
nine stripes, and paid him off. That was all the pay he 
got, and they sent him on to the next town. 

When I read of the life of such a man, how I blush to 
think how sickly and dwarfed Christianity is at the present 
time, and how many hundreds there are who never think of 
working for the Son of God and honoring Christ. 

Yet when he wrote that letter back to Corinth, we find 
him taking an inventory of some things he had. 

He is rich, he says: In journeyings, often in perils of 
water; in perils by my own countrymen; in perils by the 
heathen; in perils in the city; in perils in the wilderness; in 
perils in the sea; in perils among false brethren. That must 
have been the hardest of all. In weariness, in painfulness, 
in watchings often; in hungering, in thirsting, in fasting 
often; in cold, in nakedness; and besides all these, the care 
of all the churches. These are only some of the things that 
he summed up. Do you know what made him so exceed- 
ingly glad? It was just because he believed the Scripture; 
he believed that Sermon on the Mount. We profess to be- 
lieve it; we pretend to believe it; but few of us more than 
half believe it. Listen to one sentence in that sermon: 
Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in 
heaven when you are persecuted. Now this persecution was 
about all that Paul had. 

That was his capital, and he had a good deal of it; he ha^ 
laid by a good many persecutions, and he was to get a great 
reward. Christ says, Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for 



102 HEAVEN. 



great is your reward. If Jesus Christ called it great it must 
be wonderful. We call things great that may look very 
small to Jesus Christ; and things that look very small to us 
may look very large to Christ, and when the great Christ, the 
Creator of heaven and earth, He who created the heavens 
and the earth by His mighty power, when He calls it a great 
reward, what must it be? 

Perhaps some people said to him: " Now, Paul, you are 
meeting with too much opposition; you are suffering too 
much." 

Hear him reply: These light afflictions just for a mo- 
ment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory. 

"These light afflictions," he calls them. We would have 
called them pretty hard, pretty heavy, would n't we? 

But he says, "These light afflictions are nothing; think of 
the glory before me, and think of the crowning time; think 
of the reward that is laid up for me. I am on my way; He 
will give it to me when the time comes;" and that is 
what filled his soul with joy; it was the reward that the Lord 
had in store for him. 

Now, my friends, let us just for a minute think of what he 
accomplished. Think of going out, as it were, among the 
heathen; the first missionary to preach to these men, that 
were so full of wickedness and so full of enmity and bitter- 
ness, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and to tell them 
that the man who died outside the walls of the city of Jeru- 
salem the death of a common prisoner, a common felon, in 
the sight of the world, was the Christ; to tell them that they 
had to believe in that crucified man in order to get into the 
kingdom of God. 

Think of the dark mountain that rose up before him; think 
of the opposition; think of the bitter persecution, and then 
think of the trifles in our way. 



ITS REWARDS. 103 



SONGS IN PRISON. 

But a great many worldly people think Paul's life was a 
failure. Probably his enemies thought when they put him 
in prison it would silence him; but do you know that I 
belie ve to-day Paul thanks God more for prisons, for stripes, 
for persecution and the opposition that he suffered, than 
anything else that happened to him here? 

The very things we don't like are sometimes the very best 
for us. 

Christians probably might not have these glorious epistles, 
if Paul had not been thrown into prison. There he took up 
his pen and began to write that letter to the Christians at 
Corinth. Look at the two epistles that he wrote at Corinth 
to the Corinthians. Look and see how much has been done 
for the world by these epistles. See what a blessing they 
have been to the church of God; how they have thrown 
light on many a man's life. But we might not have those 
epistles if it had not been for opposition. 

No doubt John Bunyan blesses God more to-day for Bed- 
ford jail than anything that happened to him. Probably we 
would not have the Pilgrim's Progress if he had not been 
thrown into that jail. Satan thought he accomplished a great 
deal when he shut Bunyan up twelve years and six months 
in that jail; but what a blessing it was to the world; and I 
believe Paul blesses God to-day for the Philippian Jail, and 
for the opposition he encountered in Rome, because it gave 
him time to write those blessed letters. Talk of Alexander 
making the world tremble with the tread of his armies; and 
Caesar and Napoleon's power; but here is a little tent-maker 
who without an army, moved the world. 

Why? 

Because God Almighty was with him. 

He says in one place " None of these things move me." 



% 



104 HEAVEN. 



They threw him in prison; but it was all the same — it did not 
move him. When he was at Corinth and Athens preaching, 
it was all the same. He just pressed towards the mark of 
the prize of his high calling. If God wanted him to go 
through prisons to win the prize, it was all the same to him. 
They put him in prison, but they put the Almighty in with 
him 5 and he was so linked to Jesus that they could not sepa- 
rate them. He would rather be in prison with Christ than 
out of prison without him. He would a thousand times 
rather be cast into prison with the Son of God and suffer a 
little persecution for a few days here, than to be living with- 
out him. 

He went over into Macedonia. He heard the cry, " Come 
over into Macedonia, and help us." He went over and he 
preached, and the first thing that happened to him was that 
he was put'into the Philippian jail. Now, if he had been as 
faint-hearted as most of us, he would have been disap- 
pointed and cast down. There would have been a good 
deal of complaint. 

He would have said, "This is a strange Providence; what 
ever brought me here? I thought the Lord called me here; 
here I am in prison in a strange city; how did I ever get 
here? how will I ever get out of this place? I have no 
money; I have no friends; I have no attorney; I have no 
one to intercede for me, and here I am." Paul and Silas 
were not only in prison, but they made their feet fast in the 
stocks. There they were, in the inner prison, the inner 
dungeon, a dark, cold, damp dungeon. But at midnight 
those prisoners heard a strange voice. They had never 
heard anything like it before. They heard singing. I don't 
know what song they sung, but I know one thing, it was 
not a doleful sound from the tombs. You know we have a 
hymn: " Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound." They 
didn't sing that, but the Bible tells us they sang praises. 
That was a queer place to sing praises, wasn't it? 



ITS REWARDS. 105 



I suppose it was time for the evening prayers, and that 
they had just had their evening prayer and then sang their 
evening song. And God answered their prayers, and the 
old prison shook, and the chains fell off, and the prison doors 
were opened. Yes, yes; I have no doubt he thanks God in 
glory that he went to jail and that the Philippian jailer be- 
came converted. 

SWEPT INTO GLORY. 

But look at him at Rome. Nero has signed his death- 
warrant. Take your stand and look at the little man. He 
is small; in the sight of the world he is contemptible; the 
world frowns upon him. Go to the palace of the king and 
talk about that criminal — about Paul — and you will see a 
sneer on their countenances. 

" Oh, he is a fanatic," they say, "he has gone mad." I wish 
the world was filled with such lunatics. I tell you what we 
want to-day is a few lunatics like him; men that fear noth- 
ing but sin and love no one but God. 

Rome never had such a conqueror within its limits. Rome 
never had such a mighty man as Paul within its boundaries. 
Although the world looked down upon him, and he looked 
very small and contemptible, yet in the sight of heaven he 
was the mightiest man that ever trod the streets of Rome. 
Probably there will never be another one like him that will 
ever travel those streets. The Son of God walked with him, 
and the form of the Fourth was with him. But go into 
that prison; there he is; they come to him and tell him 
that Nero has signed his death-warrant. He does not trem- 
ble; he is not afraid. 

" Paul, are you not sorry you have been so zealous- for 
Christ? It is going to cost you your life; if you had to live 
your life over again, would you give it to Jesus of Nazareth?'' 
What do you think the old warrior would say? 

See that eye light up as he says, "If I had ten thousand 



106 HEAVEN. 



lives I should give every one to Christ, and the only regret 
I have is that I did not commence earlier and serve Him 
better; the only regret I have now is that I ever lifted my 
voice against Jesus of Nazareth/' 

" But they are going to behead you." 

" Well, they may take my head, but the Lord has my 
heart. I don't care about my head; the Lord has my heart 
and has had it for years. They can not separate me from 
the Lord, and though my head may be taken off, we are not 
going to be separated." And they let him out. 

I don't know; perhaps it was early in the morning. Pro- 
fane history tells us that they led him two miles out of the 
city. Look at the little tent-maker as he goes along through 
the streets of Rome with a firm tread. Look at that giant 
as he moves through the streets. He is on his way to the 
execution. Take your stand by his side and hear him talk. 
He is talking of the glory beyond. 

He says: " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness. I shall be there to-night. I shall see the 
King in his beauty to-night. I have longed to be with Him; 
I have longed to see Him. This is my crowning day." 

The world pitied him, but he did not need its pity. He 
had something the world had not; he had a love and zeal 
burning within him which the world knew nothing about. 
Ah, the love that Paul had for Jesus Christ ! 

But the hour has come. The way they used to behead 
them in those days was for the prisoner to bend his head, and 
a Roman soldier took a sharp sword and cut it off. The hour 
had come, and, with a joyful countenance, I can see Paul 
bending that blessed head of his, and that sword comes down 
and sets his spirit free. 

If our eyes could look as Elisha's looked, we would have 
seen him leap into a chariot of light like Elijah; we would 
have seen him go sweeping through limitless space. 



ITS REWARDS. 107 

Look at him, now as he mounts higher and higher; look at 
him, see him move up; up — up — up — ever upward. 

Look at him yonder! 

See! he is entering now the Eternal City of the glorified 
saints, the blissful abode of the Saviour's Redeemed. The 
prize he so long has sought is at hand. See yonder the 
gates; how they fly wide open. See the herald angels yon- 
der on the shining battlements of heaven. Hear the glad 
shouts that is passed along, " He is coming! he is coming!" 
And he goes sweeping through the pearly gates, up through 
the shining way, to the very throne of God, and Christ stands 
there and says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

Just think of hearing the Master say that — that is enough 
for everything, is it not? 

Oh friends, your turn and mine will come by-and-by, if 
we are but faithful; let us see that we do not lose the crown. 
Let us awake and put on the whole armor of God; let us 
press into the conflict; it is a glorious privilege; and then 
to us too, as to the glorified of old, will come that blessed 
welcome: " Well done, thou good and faithful servant." 



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meetings. The book has been issued under the title of The Way 
and the Word, and is a neat little volume, in paper cover, contain- 
ing a treatise on Mr. Moody's favorite topic, Regeneration ; also his 
thoughts on Bible study ; the whole prefaced with a personal intro- 
duction by Mr. Moody. Ten thousand copies were ordered for 
distribution to the young converts and inquirers ; the names received 
amounting to nearly that number. 

64 Pages. Price. 25c, $2.00 per doz.; cloth, 40c. 



May Christians Dance 1 By James H. Brookes, D. D. 144 pp. i6mo. 25 cents. 
Cloth, 60 cents. 

The subject of this small volume is again creating considerable comment and 
controversy throughout the religious press. The author has handled the subject 
carefully and deliberately, but very decidedly, making charges especially against 
the contaminating influences of the round dance. The book should be largely cir- 
culated. 

How to be Saved, or the Sinner Directed to the Saviour. By J. H. Brookes, 
D. D. 120 pp. Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, 50 cents. 

The Scientific and Religions Discoveries in the Great Pyramid, recently made 
by Prof. Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and by other noted scholars. 
Compiled by Wm. H. Wilson. Illustrated with several diagrams. 64 pp. sq. i6mo. 
25 cents. Cloth, 50 cents. 

To say that the facts herein set forth are wonderful is far below the truth. Many 
are so marvelous, and the deductions from them are so important, that no Christian 
can afford to pass them by. Many will reject the conclusions of the writers, none 
can resist the facts, and they should be known. 

Life and Light. A book for anxious ones and young converts, being outlines of a few 
addresses, and the substance of conversations and correspondence with enquirers, 
and an exposition of many difficult passages. By an Evangelist. Second edition, 
revised and enlarged. 124 pp. i6mo. 25 cents. 
One of the very best books we have ever issued. 

Our Salvation. Past, Present and Future. By Geo. C. Needham, Evangelist. 
32 pp. tract, 5 cents. 

Future Punishment. A test case, by Rev. H. L. Hammond. An admirable dissec- 
tion and exposure of a plausible and popular delusion ; a good thing to have scat- 
tered abroad by thousands. 

" The spirit of the discussion is a model, the argument well managed and conclu- 
sive." Rev. Henry Cowles, D. D. 32 pp. and cover, neat, 15 cents. 

Symbolic Structure of the Gospel of St. John. A study. By W. J. Erdman. 
The writer of this study of 104 pages, traces the symbolic progress of Jesus as 
the glory of God through the Gospel of John as through the courts and holy places 
of the Temple at Jerusalem. 104 pp. sq. i6mo., 30 cents. 

** The Gospel Awakening." Latest, most complete and cheapest. Comprising 150 
Sermons and Addresses, Prayer Meeting Talks, Bible Readings and Prayers of the 
Great Revival Meetings, conducted by Moody and Sankey, in Philadelphia, New 
York, Chicago and Boston, as well as in Great Britain, with the proceedings of the 
Christian Conventions of Ministers and Laymen, from verbatim reports. Also the 
lives of D. L. Moody, I. D. Sankey, P. P. Bliss, Maj. D. W. Whittle, Rev. Joseph 
Cook, Rev. George F. Pentecost and Miss Frances E. Willard. Also, Sermons, 
Bible Readings and Lectures by Joseph Cook, George F. Pentecost, D. W. Whittle, 
and Miss Frances E. Willard. The work forms a large crown octavo volume of 861 
closely printed pages; 13 illustrations. Cloth, $2.50. 

Any book in this list sent post-free to any address on receipt of price. 

F. H. REVELL, Publisher, 

148 and 130 Madison Street. CHICACjU. 



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